Laser induced breakdown spectroscopy (Libs) as a powerfultechnique for investigation of the metal accumulation invegetal tissues

Currently, the practice in mineral element analysis of plants employs whole plant organs or tissue fractions for element analysis. Thus, contributions of different elements in different cell types and cellular compartments are measured. In this way, particular information on the sub-cellular distribution is lost. The unique feature of diagnostic techniques based on short (ns) or ultra-short (fs) pulses enables laser ablation of bio-samples with a very little colateral damage surrounding the ablated craters. LIBS seems to be a promising technique allowing the determination of spatial and lateral distribution of elements within individual plants cells or different cell layers to identify ion storage and trafficking within different plant compartments which is still not fully explained. We here report on application of the LIBS technique for analysis of different pollutants in leaves or sections of leaves and root sections of selected plant samples. We should also note that it is very difficult to obtain standard materials for laser-ablation based techniques (e.g. LIBS or LA-ICP-MS). For the standard data for elemental distribution in plant samples we are utilizing methods based on X-ray radiation - X-ray microradiography and X-ray microtomography