Recently, the development of methods for the identification of explosive materials that are faster, more sensitive, easier to use, and more cost-effective has become a very important issue for homeland security and counter-terrorism applications. However, limited applicability of several analytical methods such as, the incapability of detecting explosives in a sealed container, the limited portability of instruments, and false alarms due to the inherent lack of selectivity, have motivated the increased interest in the application of Raman spectroscopy for the rapid detection and identification of explosive materials. Raman spectroscopy has received a growing interest due to its stand-off capacity, which allows samples to be analyzed at distance from the instrument. In addition, Raman spectroscopy has the capability to detect explosives in sealed containers such as glass or plastic bottles. We report a rapid and sensitive recognition technique for explosive compounds using Raman spectroscopy and principal component analysis (PCA). Seven hundreds of Raman spectra (50 measurements per sample) for 14 selected explosives were collected, and were pretreated with noise suppression and baseline elimination methods. PCA, a well-known multivariate statistical method, was applied for the proper evaluation, feature extraction, and identification of measured spectra. Here, a broad wavenumber range (200- 3500 cm-1) on the collected spectra set was used for the classification of the explosive samples into separate classes. It was found that three principal components achieved 99.3 % classification rates in the sample set. The results show that Raman spectroscopy in combination with PCA is well suited for the identification and differentiation of explosives in the field.
Recently, improvised explosive device (IED) has been a serious threat for many countries. One of the approaches to alleviate this threat is standoff detection of explosive molecules used in IEDs. Raman spectroscopy is a prospective method among many technologies under research to achieve this goal. It provides unique information of the target materials, through which the ingredients used in IEDs can be analyzed and identified. The main problem of standoff Raman spectroscopic detection is the large background noise hindering weak Raman signals from the target samples. Typical background noise comes from both ambient fluorescent lights indoor and sunlight outdoor whose intensities are usually much larger than that of Raman scattering from the sample. Under the proper condition using pulse laser and ICCD camera with nanosecond pulse width and gating technology, we succeed to separate and remove these background noises from Raman signals. For this experiment, we build an optical system for standoff detection of explosive molecules. We use 532 nm, 10 Hz, Q-switching Nd:YAG laser as light source, and ICCD camera triggered by laser Qswitching time with proper gate delay regarding the flight time of Raman from target materials. Our detection system is successfully applied to detect and identify more than 20 ingredients of IEDs including TNT, RDX, and HMX which are located 10 to 54 meters away from the system.
In security, it is an important issue to analyze hazardous materials in sealed bottles. Particularly, prompt nondestructive checking of sealed liquid bottles in a very short time at the checkpoints of crowded malls, stadiums, or airports is of particular importance to prevent probable terrorist attack using liquid explosives. Aiming to design and fabricate a detector for liquid explosives, we have used linearly focused Raman spectroscopy to analyze liquid materials in transparent or semi-transparent bottles without opening their caps. Continuous lasers with 532 nm wavelength and 58 mW/130 mW beam energy have been used for the Raman spectroscopy. Various hazardous materials including flammable liquids and explosive materials have successfully been distinguished and identified within a couple of seconds. We believe that our technique will be one of suitable methods for fast screening of liquid materials in sealed bottles.
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