Spectroscopy of laser-induced plasmas: an interdisciplinary research program for the 21st Century

等离子体是含有自由电子、离子和原子的高温气体。这些等离子体发出的光包含了组成等离子体的原子和分子的信息。当一个强大的激光脉冲聚焦在目标材料上的一个非常紧密的点上时，激光脉冲的不可思议的能量将材料原子一个原子地撕裂，产生一个看起来像小火花塞火花的微型等离子体。因为它是由激光产生的，我们称之为激光诱导等离子体（LIP）。LIP相对容易创建和控制，它几乎可以在任何材料上创建，这使得它成为一个非常强大和有吸引力的分析工具，可以快速和容易地确定未知目标的组成。通过向含有细菌的样本发射激光，我可以迅速确定细菌的原子组成，从而唯一地识别它。这种近乎实时地检测和识别细菌病原体的能力在人类生活的许多方面都很重要，包括临床医学和医院、执法和第一反应社区、食品和饮料卫生以及饮用水/游泳水的清洁和安全。因此，它有可能影响所有加拿大人生活的许多方面。LIP也是一个完美的实验室环境，可以制造不寻常元素的外来离子，然后可以测量以确定它们独特的原子性质。这些信息对于在来自遥远恒星的光线中看到这些元素的天文学家和天体物理学家来说是至关重要的。当我们进行这些类型的测量时，我们称之为“实验室天体物理学”，这些测量将使加拿大和世界各地的科学家受益。lip在工业、制造业、环境监测和基础科学（仅举几个领域）中的应用是众多的，并且每天都在增长。通过在温莎培养高素质的人才，我们正在为加拿大的科学家和研究人员做好准备，使他们能够在这一令人兴奋的新科学技术的发展中发挥主导作用，并能够设计、建造和利用下一代高科技设备。

Plasmas are high-temperature gases that contain free electrons, ions, and atoms. The light emitted by these plasmas contains information about which atoms and molecules comprise the plasma. When a powerful pulse of laser light is focused to a very tight spot on some target material, the incredible energy of the laser pulse rips the material apart atom by atom, creating a miniature plasma that looks like a small spark-plug spark. Because it was created by a laser, we call this a laser-induced plasma (LIP). The LIP is relatively easy to create and control, and it can be created on almost any material one can imagine, which makes it a very powerful and attractive analytic tool for rapidly and easily determining the composition of an unknown target. By firing the laser at a specimen containing bacteria, I can rapidly determine the atomic composition of the bacteria, and thus uniquely identify it. This ability to detect and identify bacterial pathogens in near real-time is important in many facets of human life, including clinical medicine and in hospitals, in the law-enforcement and first-responder community, in food and beverage hygiene, and in drinking/swimming water cleanliness and safety. As such, it has the potential to impact all Canadians in many aspects of their lives. The LIP is also a perfect laboratory environment to make exotic ions of unusual elements that can then be measured to determine their unique atomic properties. This information is vital for astronomers and astrophysicists who see these elements in the light coming from distant stars. When we make these types of measurements we call this "laboratory astrophysics," and these measurements will benefit scientists all over Canada and the world. The applications of LIPs in industry, manufacturing, environmental monitoring, and fundamental science (to name just a few fields) are numerous and are growing every day. By training highly-qualified personnel in Windsor, we are preparing Canadian scientists and researchers to play a lead role in the development of this exciting new scientific technique and to be able to design, build, and utilize the next generation of high-technology apparatus.