Design, Fabrication, and Application of Micro-Structured Surfaces for Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopic Analysis of Liquids: A Sample-Loading Target Development Studies

Abstract

In this paper, design, fabrication, and application studies of a sample loading target patterned with periodical micro-structures were presented. Two different geometrical shapes; triangular prisms and cylinders of two different feature sizes; 5-mu m, and 20-mu m, were photo-lithographically patterned on Si-wafer substrates, and dry etched to 10 mu m height. Followed by a 1-mu m thick silicon nitride film coating over micro-patterned substrates, final products were obtained after dicing into one-inch size squares, each containing 36 patterned sample loading areas. Among the three different patterns studied; a geometric design with 20-mu m diameter cylinders exhibited a more effective task in increasing the LIBS signal strength, compared to the other two patterns. The characterization of the surface morphology and the size-shape distribution of the micro-patterns were carried out through optical and scanning electron microscopic measurements. SEM images proved a more effective ablation occur-ring on triangular prism micro-structured surfaces that can be associated with an increased path length and enhanced absorption of the laser beam on the flat surfaces of triangular prism via multiple reflections. The results of structured surfaces were also compared with the ones from non-structured surfaces of 300 nm and 1000 nm thicknesses of silicon nitride-coating. The applications of micro-structured surfaces for heavy metals analysis were performed with Cr and Pb solutions via dried-droplet LIBS methodology. The enhancement factor of 4 for Pb(I) 405.8 nm, and 8 for Cr(I) 428.9 nm were observed from the 20-mu m diameter cylinder, CYL-20, surfaces compared to 300 nm thick Si3N4 surfaces, respectively. This study of micro-structuring substrate surfaces with an emphasis on the signal enhancement effect is promising in terms of improving the capacity and limitations of the dried-droplet methodology by LIBS.