Efficient non-gated remote filament-induced breakdown spectroscopy of metallic sample

Remote filament-induced breakdown spectroscopy (R-FIBS) is a novel technique that could be applied at long distance up to a few kilometers. Our work demonstrates that by creating short and strong filaments in the atmosphere with a telescopic beam delivering system, continuum background in R-FIBS spectrum will be significantly reduced. This allows for a non-gated R-FIBS configuration for identifying solid targets. As an example, we used an aluminum plate located 50 m away from our detection system. The obtained fingerprint spectrum is so strong that the detection limit could reach 1.9 km in distance and ppm level in terms of minor element concentration.