Exploiting Self-Absorption for Plasma Characterization in Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy Experiments: A Comparison of Two Recent Approaches.

In this article, we compare two analytical methods that have been recently proposed: the columnar density Saha-Boltzmann plot method of Cristoforetti and Tognoni (Cristoforetti, G.; Tognoni, E. Spectrochim.

Determination of excitation temperature in laser-induced plasmas using columnar density Saha-Boltzmann plot.

In exploiting the analytical capabilities of plasma-based spectroscopy method, the evaluation of plasma parameters, particularly the plasma temperature, is a crucial step. In this work, a modified Saha-Boltzmann plot, which uses the columnar densities of atomic and ionic ground levels, is utilized to calculate the plasma temperature in a laser-induced plasma from an aluminum alloy target. The columnar densities are here calculated by quantifying the self-absorption of resonance lines.