Multi-constituents detection in contaminated aerosol clouds using remote-filament-induced breakdown spectroscopy

• Published in: Optics communications Vol. 278; no. 1; pp. 147 - 152
• Main Authors: Daigle, J.-F., Mathieu, P., Roy, G., Simard, J.-R., Chin, S.L.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier B.V 01-10-2007; Elsevier Science
• Subjects: Atmospheric optics; Biological and medical applications; Earth, ocean, space; Exact sciences and technology; External geophysics; Fundamental areas of phenomenology (including applications); Laser spectroscopy; Meteorology; Optics; Particles and aerosols; Physics; Remote sensing; lidar and adaptive systems; experimental studies; Plasma; Energy-level transitions; aerosols; fluorescence; Laser spectroscopy; Lidar; remote sensing; Real time system; Atmospheric optics
• ISSN: 0030-4018; 1873-0310
• DOI: 10.1016/j.optcom.2007.05.044

Remote-filament-induced breakdown spectroscopy (R-FIBS) was used for probing a cloud of aqueous aerosols containing a mixture of PbCl2, CuCl2, FeCl2 and NaCl. We demonstrated experimentally that it can be used as a sensitive sensing technique to remotely retrieve the composition of microdroplets in clouds located at a distance. In fact, fluorescence from all the metallic ions dissolved was observed. Moreover, these spectrally narrow atomic transitions excited by the low-density plasma did not show any signal overlap. These characteristic spectra demonstrate that R-FIBS can be used to simultaneously recognize and distinguish every single metallic constituent dissolved inside such a cloud.