In the present work, nanoparticle-enhanced laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy was used to analyze an aluminum alloy. Although LIBS has numerous advantages, it suffers from low sensitivity and low detection limits compared to other spectrochemical analytical methods. However, using gold nanoparticles helps to overcome such drawbacks and enhances the LIBS sensitivity in analyzing aluminum alloy in the current work. Aluminum was the major element in the analyzed samples (99.9%), while magnesium (Mg) was the minor element (0.1%). The spread of gold nanoparticles onto the Al alloy and using a laser with different pulse energies were exploited to enhance the Al alloy spectral lines. The results showed that Au NPs successfully improved the alloy spectral lines intensity by eight times, which could be useful for detecting many trace elements in higher matrix alloys. Under the assumption of local thermodynamic equilibrium, the Boltzmann plot was used to calculate the plasma temperature. Besides, the electron density was calculated using Mg and H lines at Mg(I) at 285.2 nm and Hα(I) at 656.2 nm, respectively. Three-dimensional contour mapping and color fill images contributed to understanding the behavior of the involved effects.
Keywords: 3D imaging; Al alloy; Au NPs; Gold nanoparticles; LIBS; LTE; laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy; local thermodynamic equilibrium; three-dimensional imaging.