An acoustic based, laser induced breakdown method for determining the sizes and concentrations of nanoparticles

An acoustic, laser induced breakdown (LIBD) method has been developed for determining the sizes and concentrations of nano-sized colloids. The size distributions from a mixture of aquatic nanoparticles are determined by measuring amplitudes of plasma shockwave that are fitted to multi-curve Gaussian distributions displayed in separate peaks with positions corresponding to particle sizes and areas being proportional to concentrations.