Quantitative analysis of C, Si, Mn, Ni, Cr and Cu in low-alloy steel under ambient conditions via laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy

A diode-pumped solid-state laser （DPSSL） with a high energetic stability and long service life is applied to ablate the steel samples instead of traditional Nd：YAG laser pumped by a xenon lamp, and several factors, such as laser pulse energy, repetition rate and argon flow rate, that influence laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy （LIBS） analytical performance are investigated in detail. Under the optimal experiment conditions, the relative standard deviations for C, Si, Mn, Ni, Cr and Cu are 3.3%-8.9%, 0.9%-2.8%, 1.2%-4.1%, 1.7%-3.0%, 1.1%-3.4% and 2.5%-8.5%, respectively, with the corresponding relative errors of 1.1%-7.9%, 1.0%-6.3%, 0.4%-3.9%, 1.5%-6.3%, 1.2%-4.0% and 1.2%-6.4%. Compared with the results of the traditional spark discharge optical emission spectrometry technique, the analytical performance of LIBS is just a little inferior due to the less stable laser-induced plasma and smaller amount of ablated sample by the laser. However, the precision, detection limits and accuracy of LIBS obtained in our present work were sufficient to meet the requirements for process analysis. These technical performances of higher stability of output energy and longer service life for DPSSL, in comparison to the Q-switch laser pumped by xeon lamp, qualify it well for the real time online analysis for different industrial applications.

Mechanisms and efficient elimination approaches of self-absorption in LIBS

Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy(LIBS) is a promising analytical spectroscopy technology based on spectroscopic analysis of the radiation emitted by laser-produced plasma.However, for quantitative analysis by LIBS, the so-called self-absorption effects on the spectral lines, which affect plasma characteristics, emission line shapes, calibration curves, etc, can no longer be neglected. Hence, understanding and determining the self-absorption effects are of utmost importance to LIBS research. The purpose of this review is to provide a global overview of self-absorption in LIBS on the issues of experimental observations and adverse effects,physical mechanisms, correction or elimination approaches, and utilizations in the past century.We believe that better understanding and effective solving the self-absorption effect will further enhance the development and maturity of LIBS.

Recent progress in the development of smart supercapacitors

Recently,with the continuous development of human society and the continuous innovation of technologies,the intelligence era has arrived.Various intelligent electronic devices continue to be developed,in which flexible wearable electronic devices are highly favored by people.To meet the requirements of the normal operation of intelligent devices,the key point lies in the development of new smart energy storage devices.Accordingly,smart supercapacitors have been widely focused on and studied by researchers recently with the introduction of intelligent functions,such as electrochromism,self‐healing,and shape memory,into supercapacitors to broaden their application fields and promote their smart development.This can meet not only people's energy needs but also people's diverse personality needs and make our life more convenient,fast,and more intelligent than ever.Therefore,it is very important to summarize related work on smart supercapacitors.Although researchers have performed much research on smart supercapacitors,there is still little literature summary on the related work of different smart supercapacitors.Accordingly,this paper mainly introduces the research progress on electrochromic,self‐healing,shape memory,and self‐charging smart supercapacitors in recent years and discusses the development prospects and challenges of smart supercapacitors.