Laser ablation technique depth profiling method

Initial results prove the high potential of LA-based hyphenated techniques for depth profiling of coatings and multilayer samples. These techniques can be used as complementary methods to other surface-analysis techniques. Probably the most reasonable application of laser ablation for depth profiling would be the range from a few tens of nanometers to a few tens of microns, a range which is difficult to analyze by other techniques, e. g. SIMS, SNMS,TXRE, GD-OES-MS, etc. The lateral and depth resolution of LA can both be improved by use of femtosecond lasers. 

Some solid materials are very intractable to analysis by standard methods and cannot be easily vaporized or dissolved in common solvents. Glass, bone, dried paint, and archaeological samples are common examples. These materials would now be examined by laser ablation, a technique that produces an aerosol of particulate matter. The laser can be used in its defocused mode for surface profiling or in its focused mode for depth profiling. Interestingly, lasers can be used to vaporize even thermally labile materials through use of the matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization (MALDI) method variant. 

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