Hands-on LIBS Assay Workshop

A laser spectrometer will give you a number for anything you point it at. Knowing whether that number is right is the skill this workshop teaches. Chief Assayer Imani Oduya leads three days of practical sessions on the Spectra Assay Lance, from cleaning a sample surface to building a calibration curve for platinum in iron-nickel.

Day two covers matrix effects, the reason a reading on sulfur-coated Io crust needs a different correction from one on Vesta breccia. On day three, Ore-Sorting Engineer Eamon Dubois shows how the same LIBS physics runs at industrial speed inside the Sieve Ore-Sorting Rig, sorting 40 tonnes an hour.

Participants bring their own lance or borrow one of twelve from the lab. Places are limited to 24, and everyone leaves with a set of certified reference standards and an AssayKit calibration file they built themselves.