Abstract:In-situ, rapid and sensitive hydrogen leak monitoring in confined spaces remains challenging because air humidity can affect the accuracy and sensitivity of hydrogen detection. In this work, a compact spark-discharge-assisted laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (SD-LIBS) system based on a microchip laser was developed for rapid quantitative hydrogen analysis in humid air. Spark discharge significantly enhanced the emission of the microchip laser-induced plasma. To improve the measurement reliability, the Ar I 794.82 nm line was employed as a primary in-spectrum reference for spectral normalization, while the N I 746.83 nm line was subsequently used as a secondary air-derived reference to improve the robustness of hydrogen quantification against variations in the local gas environment. In addition, humidity-dependent background correction was applied to reduce the contribution of water vapor to the Hα emission. Quantitative measurements were performed on hydrogen concentrations ranging from 0.5% to 3.5% at relative humidity between 32% and 74%. Compared with direct background subtraction, the combined Ar I normalization and N I-based secondary correction strategy obviously improved the linearity of hydrogen quantification, yielding calibration curves with R2 values above 0.980 and a maximum value of 0.993 at 66% relative humidity. The estimated limit of detection for hydrogen was determined to be 941 ppm. These results demonstrate that the proposed microchip-laser-based SD-LIBS method with humidity-dependent correction enables improved calibration linearity for hydrogen analysis and shows potential for early hydrogen leak detection in humid atmospheric environments.