Vibrational Emission Study of the CN and C2 in Nylon and ZnO/Nylon Polymer Using Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS)

Abstract

The laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) technique was performed on polymers to study the neutral and ionic emission lines along with the CN violet system (B2Σ+ to X2Σ+) and the C2 Swan system (d3 Пg–a3 Пu). For the laser-based emission analyses, the plasma was produced by focusing the laser beam of a Q-switched Nd: YAG laser (2ω) at an optical wavelength of 532 nm, 5 ns pulse width, and a repetition frequency of 10 Hz. The integration time of the detection system was fixed at 1–10 ms while the target sample was positioned in air ambiance. Two organic polymers were investigated in this work: nylon and nylon doped with ZnO. The molecular optical emission study of nylon and doped nylon polymer sample reveals CN and C2 molecular structures present in the polymer. The vibrational emission analysis of CN and C2 bands gives information about the molecular structure of polymers and dynamics influencing the excitation structures of the molecules. Besides, it was further investigated that the intensity of the molecular optical emission structure strongly depends on the electron number density (cm−3), excitation temperature (eV), and laser irradiance (W/cm2). These results suggest that LIBS is a reliable diagnostic technique for the study of polymers regarding their molecular structure, identification, and compositional analysis.