RENZONI1	All optical material characterization
Type	Experimental
#students	1
Orientation	Why is the scientific problem of interest at all? . The possibility to perform in situ characterization of materials is of great interest in a variety of situations, from the exploration of Mars to the monitoring of contaminated industrial sites.
How	How is the research going to shed light on the given problem? This project aims to develop a technique which, by combining laser ablation and laser spectroscopy, will allow performance of all-optical characterization of materials in the solid phase. This will involve the use of high-power pulsed lasers for the ablation process, and low power continuous wave lasers for the spectroscopy of the ablated material. This technique will be suitable for a variety of applications: from establishing the age of geological samples to the monitoring of the pollution of soils.
What	What is the specific thing that the student will do, and how does it fit inside the overall project? The student will learn how to operate a laser ablation experiment, and become familiar with the techniques of laser spectroscopy. She/he will then determine the performances of the experimental set-up by analysing calibrated samples containing caesium. She/he will then analyse samples containing an unknown amount of the material.
Special Knowlegde	No special knowledge is strictly required. However, general concepts acquired in, e.g. the course “Lasers and modern optics” or in the “Laser Spectroscopy” experiment would be very useful.
Supervisor	Prof. F. Renzoni f.renzoni@ucl.ac.uk