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Terrorists conceal highly energetic materials (HEM) as Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) in various types of materials such as PVC, wood, Teflon, aluminum, acrylic, carton and rubber to disguise them from detection equipment used by military and security agency personnel. Infrared emissions (IREs) of substrates, with and without HEM, were measured to generate models for detection and discrimination. Multivariable analysis techniques such as principal component analysis (PCA), soft independent modeling by class analogy (SIMCA), partial least squares-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA), support vector machine (SVM) and neural networks (NN) were employed to generate models, in which the emission of IR light from heated samples was stimulated using a CO 2 laser giving rise to laser induced thermal emission (LITE) of HEMs. Traces of a specific target threat chemical explosive: PETN in surface concentrations of 10 to 300 ug/cm 2 were studied on the surfaces mentioned. Custom built experimental setup used a CO 2 laser as a heating source positioned with a telescope, where a minimal loss in reflective optics was reported, for the Mid-IR at a distance of 4 m and 32 scans at 10 s. SVM-DA resulted in the best statistical technique for a discrimination performance of 97%. PLS-DA accurately predicted over 94% and NN 88%.

A laser mediated methodology for remote thermal excitation of analytes followed by standoff IR detection is proposed. The goal of this study was to determine the feasibility of using laser induced thermal emission (LITE) from vibrationally excited explosives residues deposited on surfaces to detect explosives remotely. Telescope based FT-IR spectral measurements were carried out to examine substrates containing trace amounts of threat compounds used in explosive devices. The highly energetic materials (HEM) used were PETN, TATP, RDX, TNT, DNT and ammonium nitrate with concentrations from 5 to 200 μg/cm 2 . Target substrates of various thicknesses were remotely heated using a high power CO2 laser, and their mid-infrared (MIR) thermally stimulated emission spectra were recorded. The telescope was configured from reflective optical elements in order to minimize emission losses in the MIR frequencies and to provide optimum overall performance. Spectral replicas were acquired at a distance of 4 m with an FT-IR interferometer at 4 cm- 1 resolution and 10 scans. Laser power was varied from 4-36 W at radiation exposure times of 10, 20, 30 and 60 s. CO 2 laser powers were adjusted to improve the detection and identification of the HEM samples. The advantages of increasing the thermal emission were easily observed in the results. Signal intensities were proportional to the thickness of the coated surface (a function of the surface concentration), as well as the laser power and laser exposure time. For samples of RDX and PETN, varying the power and time of induction of the laser, the calculated low limit of detections were 2 and 1 μg/cm 2 , respectively.

A standoff multivariate calibration for detection of highly energetic materials (HEM) using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy is presented in this report. The procedure consists in standoff sensing at 1 m distance and the variation of three parameters of detection. The first variable considered was the angular dependence: 0° to 45‡ from source-target with respect to alignment of target-detector. The second variable consisted on the use of several surfaces on which the material was deposited. The substrates used were polished aluminum and anodized aluminum. The third variable studied was the dependence on some specific analyte loading surface concentration: from 10 μg/cm 2 to200 μg/cm 2 . The HEM used in this work was PETN, synthesized in our lab. Calibration curves were based on the use of chemometrics routines such as partial least squares (PLS) regression analysis. This algorithm was used to evaluate the impact of the angular dependence about the limits of detection of different HME loadings on aluminum substrates.

Vibrational standoff detection of explosives has been addressed using Raman, FT-IR and quantum cascade laser spectroscopies. Effects of parameters such as angle of incidence, distance, surface concentrations and substrates were investigated.