Abstract
Polycarbonate is a strong, durable, and high-transparent material. It is being used extensively in electronics applications, eyewear lenses, exterior automotive components, construction industry, and manufacturing of containers. Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) is a well-known and widely-used technique in quantitative and qualitative analysis of materials. The analysis is based on the spectra obtained in the LIBS process. We investigate the LIBS spectrum of polycarbonate (C12H18O7)(n) polymer in the presence of air, helium, argon, neon, and mixed-gas atmospheres using a Spectrolaser-7000 system. We investigate the peak intensities of hydrocarbon fragments like C-2, C, and CN in He, Ar, and Ne atmospheres. Moreover, we observe the CN molecular lines in the LIBS spectrum of polycarbonate in air only. We show that, in the He and Ne atmospheres, the peak intensity of the hydrogen (656 nm) line increases 1.85 and 4.5 times, and the peak intensity of the carbon (247 nm) line increases 1.46 and 2.6 times, respectively, as compared to that in air. These results are very useful and will help in the analysis and detection of polymers and bio-samples, which are mostly comprised of carbon and hydrogen.