This book offers a comprehensive overview of recent advances in the area of laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS), focusing on its application to biological, forensic and materials sciences. LIBS, which was previously mainly used by physicists, chemists and in the industry, has now become a very useful tool with great potential in these other fields as well. LIBS has a unique set of characteristics including minimal destructiveness, remote sensing capabilities, potential portability, extremely high information content, trace analytical sensitivity and high throughput. With its content divided into two main parts, this book provides not only an introduction to the analytical capabilities and methodology, but also an overview of the results of recent applications in the above fields. The application-oriented, multidisciplinary approach of this work is also reflected in the diversity of the expert contributors.

Part 1: Fundamentals.- Chapter 1: Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy.- Chapter 2 : Quantitative analysis.- Chapter 3: Calibration-free quantitative analysis.- Chapter 4: State-of-the-art analytical performance.- Part 2: Applications.- Chapter 5: Preclinical evaluation of nanoparticle behavior in biological tissue.- Chapter 6: Imaging of biological tissues.- Chapter 7: Qualitative discrimination of biological materials.- Chapter 8: Nanoparticle-enhanced LIBS for biological applications.- Chapter 9: Analysis of forensic trace evidence.- Chapter 10: Advanced polymer characterization.- Chapter 11: Materials characterization by laser-induced plasma acoustics and spectroscopy.