摘要： In the current paper, we applied laser induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) to determine the elemental distribution of nutritional and trace heavy metals in pepper powders available in Pakistan using standard calibration curve laser induced breakdown spectroscopy (CC-LIBS) technique. The samples were found to contained elements like K, Ca, Mg, Na, Fe, Zn, Al, Pb, Cu, and Cr. Additionally, we also identified the atmospheric H-alpha line of hydrogen in the spectra which was used to estimate the electron number density. To achieve a highly sensitive LIBS system to determine nutritional and trace amounts of toxic metals in pepper powders and to achieve the best limit of detection, the LIBS system was optimized by studying the dependency of LIBS signal intensity on laser irradiance, variation in spacing between the focusing lens and target as well on the gate width. To justify the results of LIBS study, we also determined the concentration of alike (duplicate) peppers by digesting samples in appropriate solvents using a standard method like inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES). The minimum detection limit was recognized for trace heavy metals from calibration curves. The results of LIBS displayed noteworthy conformity with those acquired from the ICP-OES analysis. Results of both the techniques clearly revealed that K was the most abundant element in all the peppers followed by Ca, Mg, Na, Fe, Al, Pb, Zn, Cu, and Cr. The relative accuracy of our LIBS system for different species as compared with ICP technique was in the range of 0.08–0.3 at 2.5 % error confidence. Conclusively, the present work demonstrated the suitability of LIBS technique due to its rapid, non destructive and eco-friendly approach for food security.