Comparison of LIBS with Other Analytical Techniques

Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) is an emerging and simplest analytical technique for the compositional elemental analysis of any material that might be in the form of solid, gaseous, or liquid. This chapter presents the bases of few commonly used analytical techniques for the compositional analysis of samples. It discusses the working principle of these analytical techniques and comparison of the quantitative results of different samples obtained using LIBS with these approaches. X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy is a technique for elemental analysis based on the detection of characteristic radiation emitted in the X-ray region of the electromagnetic spectrum. The chapter presents an analytical technique, namely LA-TOF-MS, for the compositional analysis of solid materials. This technique not only yields the absolute composition of the samples but also provides details about the natural isotopic abundance.