Quantitative analysis of trace carbon in steel samples using collinear long-short double-pulse laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy

The trace carbon (C) composition in ultra-low carbon steel is measured by Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS). Five standard steel samples, with C content between 9 and 89 μg/g, are used to study the performance of LIBS quantitative analysis. Single-pulse LIBS (SP-LIBS) and long-short double-pulse LIBS (LS-DP-LIBS) have been used to measure these five samples. Due to the carbon contamination on sample surface, SP-LIBS cannot obtain an available analysis result. To reduce the influence of carbon contamination, the pretreatment pulse method is employed in this work. The experimental results of the continuous irradiation show that the long-short pretreatment pulses can effectively eliminate the influence of carbon contamination. Finally, the trace carbon in steel samples has been successfully measured by LS-DP-LIBS with pretreatment pulses. The LOD value of carbon is 22.6 μg/g. For the measured five samples, the relative error of prediction (REP%) is between 6.1% and 35.7% and the relative standard deviation (RSD%) is between 13.9% and 58.3%.