A new method for determination of self-absorption coefficients of emission lines in laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy experiments.

In this paper we present a new method for determining the self-absorption coefficients of emission lines in laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) experiments. With respect to other methods already present in the literature, the proposed approach has the advantage of not requiring, providing some conditions are fulfilled, any knowledge of the plasma parameters such as temperature and electron number density and of the emission line spectral coefficients such as transition probability. An example of the application of the approach is given for emission lines measured at different delay times after laser ablation of a silver target.