Best practice for implementing LaTeX thin space within axis label

The following formulation for a mixed latex and non-latex string to be rendered with the latex interpreter works well; the rendered output is exactly as I expect.

x_label_str = ['time [', '$\,$', 's', '$\,', ']'];
y_label_str = ['intensity [', '$\,{\mu}$', 'V', '$\,$', ']'];

Matlab, however responds with:

Warning: Error updating Text.

String scalar or character vector must have valid interpreter syntax

When one replaces \, with \hspace{0.5em} for example, the same response is returned by the compiler.

Why? And is there a better approach for the same effect?

Answer 1

[Sulaymon Eshkabilov]

Here is the solution:

t=linspace(0, 2*pi);
h = sin(t);
figure
plot(t,h)
xlabel('$time \ [ \ s\ ]$', 'Interpreter','latex');
ylabel('$intensity \ [ \ \mu V\ ]$', 'Interpreter','latex');

[Chris L'Esperance]

Thanks for the reply! What is the reasoning behind the \ symbols? The objective is to render the parameter name text outside of the strings which are rendered as math, hence the comma strings within the array of strings. Note that the .pdf resulting from a call from a function such as export_fig must preserve the formatting / spacing appearing in the MATLAB figure window.

[Sulaymon Eshkabilov]

\ in latex gives a single blank space between the symbols, briewfly speaking. My suggested answer is accepted, right ? :)