MICROLIBS MAPPING OF TRACE ELEMENTS IN HUMAN TEETH

F. C. ALVIRA; G. M. BILMES; F. RAMIREZ ROZZI

Tenerife, España

Congreso; 9th International Conference on Laser Ablation; 2007

CSIC España

Identification of trace elements in the composition of teeth and bones are one of the main valuable tools for the determination of alimentary habits and community life conditions of groups and individuals. Conventional methods for trace analysis require sample preparation, with partial or total destruction of the pieces which in most cases are unique. They retrieve data on the total amount of trace elements in the sample, but no one of these techniques provides information about the distribution of trace elements in different regions of the piece (i.e the growing lines). In this work, we used Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) to determine the relative strontium and magnesium traces distribution in samples of human teeth. A 500 mm diameter beam, of a nanosecond Nd:YAG laser, operating at 1064 nm was used to map the Mg/Ca and Sr/Ca ratios in different regions of teeth slices. Figure 1 is a pseudo colored molar tooth slice that shows the Mg/Ca ratio distribution. Single pulse analysis was enough to perform trace identification, taking advantage of the real time, cuasi-non destructive possibility of LIBS.