Patent ID: 6034768
Filing Date: 2000-03-07
Classification: G01N

Abstract:
An induced breakdown spectroscopy system with controllable delay time for detecting a material of interest, the system comprising:generating means, located near said material of interest, for generating a high energy pulse to create a plasma;detector means for detecting and measuring a material of interest in the plasma based on spectral emissions of the material of interest;a processor connected to an output of the detector means, said processor comprising: filter means to filter out undesirable spectral regions from the detector signal;wherein said filter means comprise one or more bandpass filters; andwherein at least one of said one or more bandpass filters is substantially centered to pass spectral emissions that contain at least part of the spectral emissions of said material of interest;delay means for causing a controllable delay between the time of generation of the plasma and the time of detecting and measuring; anduser control means for controlling the duration of said delay.