Thesis (M.Sc.) - Cairo University - National Institute of Laser Enhanced Science - Department of Laser Application in Environmental Metrology Photochemistry and Agricultural

Laser induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) is a well known spectrochemical elemental analysis technique. However, it has been shown recently that it is possible to use LIBS for the surface hardness determination of solid targets. In the present work LIBS is exploited to determine the surface hardness of two different types of metallic alloys, a titanium based alloy (Ti- 6Al - 4V) and an iron based alloy (Fe93Ni4Ti3). It has been shown that there is a direct proportionality relation between the ionic to atomic spectral lines intensity ratios and the surface hardness values measured mechanically via Vickers hardness test for different samples of both alloys. Such proportionality has been demonstrated adopting different ionic and atomic spectral lines ratios from the LIBS spectra of the samples of both alloys. However, it has been proven that the intensity ratio of the ionic to atomic lines Ti II 444.38 nm / Ti I 398.97 nm can be used to determine the surface hardness for both Ti- 6Al - 4V and Fe93Ni4Ti3 alloys

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