Hydrogen emission by Nd-YAG laser-induced shock wave plasma and its application to the quantitative analysis of zircalloy

Abstract

An experiment was carried out to demonstrate the detection of a hydrogen emission line, HI656.2nm (Hα), in a plasma induced by a Q-switched Nd-YAG (YAG, yttrium aluminium garnet) laser in a low pressure gas on various types of samples, such as zinc, a glass slide, and a zircalloy tube. Contribution by surface water could be suppressed by a laser cleaning treatment and the resulting calibration curve obtained for zircalloy tube samples doped with various concentrations of hydrogen (0, 200, 540, and 960) suggest potential applications to the quantitative analysis of hydrogen. A study of the dynamic process represented by the time profiles of the hydrogen emission, in comparison with those for zinc atomic emission, revealed a specific feature that is related to the small mass of hydrogen. This specific feature can be explained by the shock wave excitation mechanism in terms of new hypothetical process, namely, a mismatch between the movement of ablated hydrogen atoms and the formation of the shock wave.