Nanosecond-gated laser induced breakdown spectroscopy in hydrocarbon mixtures

Nanosecond-gated laser induced breakdown spectroscopy have been carried out in four different hydrocarbon gas mixtures (CH4/CO2/O2/N2, C2H4/O2/N2, C3H8/CO2/O2/N2 and C4H10/CO2/O2/N2) to investigate the effect of gas species on the laser induced breakdown kinetics and resulting the plasma emission. For this purpose, each mixture that consists of different species has the same atom composition. It is found that the temporal emission spectra and the decay rates of atomic line-intensities are almost identical for the breakdowns in the four different mixtures. This finding may indicate that the breakdown plasmas of these mixtures reach a similar thermodynamic and physiochemical state after its formation, resulting in a similar trend of quenching of excited species.