Welcome to Applied Photonics Ltd

Welcome to our new website!  It is my pleasure to introduce you to Applied Photonics Ltd (APL), a UK company founded in 1998 to offer a specialised service in the field of Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS).  The motivation for setting up the new company was to capitalise on experience gained during the time I managed a LIBS applied research group at the Sellafield nuclear site in the UK.  During the following two decades, APL has become one of the longest established companies in its field with customers in more than 50 countries around the world.  APL now has an impressive portfolio of products and services which range from unique design modular LIBS instruments for laboratory use through to special applications and installations at nuclear industry facilities both in the UK and overseas.  Please see the related pages of our website for further details.

Our website is constantly being updated to provide more information about APL’s products and services.  We also aim to provide comprehensive background information on LIBS to help people who are new to this area of technology and who wish to learn more about its capabilities.

If you have any queries relating to our products and services or LIBS in general, please do not hesitate to contact me or a member of the team here!

 

Dr Andrew I. Whitehouse (AIW) Managing Director Applied Photonics Ltd Contact us

AIW wearing a vessel entry “hot suit” while deploying a LIBS probe inside one of the steam generators of an Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor (AGR) nuclear power station in the UK (Hinkley Point B, Summer 1999). The specially-designed LIBS probe was used to measure the copper content of the stainless-steel steam tube bifurcations located in the lower half of the superheater. This was the first reported use of LIBS inside a nuclear reactor pressure vessel. In-situ compositional analysis of Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor AGR steam generator tubes