Evaluating Structural Heterogeneity in Porous Metallic Foams
Evaluating structural heterogeneity in porous metallic foams has long been a challenge for standard non-destructive testing. While Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) offers rapid surface diagnostics, rough or porous surfaces often trigger uneven laser ablation and plasma plume instability. This instability leads to significant spectral fluctuations, hindering accurate porosity classification.
Recent research introduces a data-driven multimodal fusion framework designed to overcome these matrix effects. The team relied on high-precision optical diagnostic set-ups, capturing spectral emissions using a high-resolution ARYELLE BUTTERFLY Echelle spectrometer from LTB Lasertechnik Berlin. With an optical resolution of 0.02 nm, the system enabled precise line-profile extraction across UV and visible wavelengths. This spectral data proved instrumental in verifying Local Thermodynamic Equilibrium (LTE) across all nickel foam densities.
To isolate structural effects from atmospheric interactions, experiments were conducted under high-vacuum conditions on nickel foams and later compared against a dense nickel block. The analytical framework relied on tightly synchronized optical diagnostics, plasma thermodynamics verification, morphological feature extraction, and finally multimodal fusion of the data.
Combining compositional spectral data with spatial plume morphology yielded impressive experimental results of an overall accuracy of 98.20%, establishing a robust route for LIBS-based characterization of complex porous materials.
The publication for this research is entitled, “Multimodal fusion of synchronized LIBS spectra and plasma plume images for high-precision porosity classification of nickel foams.”
About the ARYELLE BUTTERFLY Spectrograph
The high-performance, wide-range, ARYELLE BUTTERFLY from LTB Lasertechnik Berlin GmbH double echelle spectrograph provides two separate spectral setups for the VUV and UV-VIS-NIS ranges, each with 400 mm focal length and one shared detector – maximum flexibility for precise elemental analysis with LIBS and Raman spectroscopy.
- Two separate spectral ranges: VUV and UV-VIS-NIR
- High spectral resolution (9,000–50,000 nm)
- Large simultaneous wavelength range
- Suitable with various detectors (CCD, ICCD)
- High light throughput
For more information or a quotation for LTB Lasertechnik Berlin products, contact IL Photonics.