Characteristics of laser induced breakdown investigated by a compact, nongated optical multichannel analyzer system and its potential application.

Laser induced breakdown is a highly temporally and spatially dynamic phenomenon, normally studied using a highly temporally resolved optical detector system. In this work, a compact, low cost optical multichannel analyzer (OMA) system without a built-in temporal gating device and thus operated under a free running mode was used to investigate the characteristics of laser induced plasma. A Nd-YAG laser beam was used as the excitation source from several samples, namely, copper, zinc, and aluminum plates.