The influence of crater depth on plasma properties and laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) emission has been evaluated. Laser-induced plasmas were generated at the surface and at the bottom of different craters in a copper sample. Plasmas produced at the sample surface and at the bottom of the craters were spatially and temporally resolved. LIBS emission, temperature, and electronic number density of the plasmas were evaluated. It is shown that the confinement effect produced by the craters enhances the LIBS signal from the laser-induced plasmas.

In order to test the reliability of the Configuration Interaction (CI) method to predict the atomic parameters viz oscillator strengths of complex ions, we measured the profiles of forth (40) strong 6s-6p transitions of Xe III emitted by a pulsed capillary discharge. After deconvoluting the experimental shapes, Stark widths and relative oscillator strengths were obtained. When Least Square Fitted parameters were used in addition to extensive CI (CI + LSF), the agreement between theory and experiment for the gf's is within a factor two for the whole of the lines. Concerning the widths, the semiempirical approach provides values also within a factor two when the Gaunt factor is taken to be g(x) ~ 0.30.

The purpose of this work is twofold. First we obtain a series expansion for the Voigt function that is valid for all values of the dimensionless parameter a (a measure of the ratio between the Lorentzian and Gaussian widths). Furthermore, the resulting coefficients are independent of the generalized coordinate b (the wavelength measured in units of the Gaussian width). In the second place, we fit an experimental “shaped bell” curve to a Voigt profile using certain theoretical restrictions that relate the maximum height and the full width at half-maximum.

In the present contribution we investigate the images of CW diffusely reflected light for a point-like source, registered by a CCD camera imaging a turbid medium containing an absorbing lesion. We show that detection of μa variations (absorption anomalies) is achieved if images are normalized to background intensity. A theoretical analysis based on the diffusion approximation is presented to investigate the sensitivity and the limitations of our proposal and a novel procedure to find the location of the inclusions in 3D is given and tested. An analysis of the noise and its influence on the detection capabilities of our proposal is provided. Experimental results on phantoms are also given, supporting the proposed approach.

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