This paper presents a method for the automatic adjustment of the laser defocusing amount in micro-laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy. A microscopic optical imaging system consisting of a CCD camera and a 20x objective lens was adopted to realize the method. The real-time auto-focusing of the system was achieved by detecting the effective pixels of the light spot generated by the laser pointer. The focusing accuracy of the method could achieve 3 mu m. The element concentrations of Mn and Ni in low-alloy steels were analyzed at a crater diameter of about 35 mu m using the presented method. After using the presented method, the determination coefficients of Mn and Ni both exceeded 0.997, with the root-mean-square errors being 0.0133 and 0.0395, respectively. Scanning analysis was performed on the inclined plane and the curved surface by means of focusing control and non-focusing control. Ten characteristic spectral lines of Fe were selected as the analysis lines. With the focusing control, the average relative standard deviations obtained on the inclined plane and curved surface were both less than 5%, and much less than the values without focusing control, 14.6% and 40.39%.

This work was published on PLASMA SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY,21(3),1-9. titled A method of laser focusing control in micro-laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy.