Counterterrorism

Brilliant Material Irradiates Explosive Detection

As the terrorist attack on the Brussels airports and metro station clearly demonstrate, currently prevalent methods of explosive detection are severely lacking. While laser-based detection systems are showing great promise, adoption is slow in part due to costs. Detection methods popular today are mostly chemical-based, and these have their own limitation.

Detectors commonly used by airport staff are laden with polymers that are fluorescent in their normal state. When explosive materials are detected in the vicinity, the fluorescence disappears. Sadly, however, fluorescence in these materials is affected not only by explosives.

“The problem was that several factors could make the fluorescence disappear; a number of salts for example had this effect. Thus these substances could give off a false alarm,” explains Steffen Bähring, researcher from the University of Southern Denmark.