Laser spectrochemical characterization of semen.

The overall objective of this paper is to use a fast, more sensitive and less costly spectrochemical analysis laser techniques for estimation of seasonal variation of elements present in seminal plasma as well as for semen sperm count. For these two tasks we used Laser Induced-Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) as an elemental analysis technique and Laser Induced Fluorescence (LIF) as a molecular analysis technique for sperm count estimation. The samples investigated via both techniques were buffalo semen from the artificial insemination center at the faculty of agriculture. The obtained LIBS data helped to assess indirectly the semen quality, sperm motility and spermatozoa count, relevant to the studied elements in different seasons. In addition it has been demonstrated that LIF can be adopted directly in centers of artificial insemination as a simple and fast method for the essential step of semen counting instead of the lengthy and inaccurate conventional techniques.