A U.S. research team says lasers could be used to detect roadside bombs

Research by the Michigan State University shows that a laser has the potential to detect Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), or roadside bombs, The Science Daily reported on Friday.

The research team, which was funded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, was led by Marcos Dantus, chemistry professor and founder of BioPhotonic Solutions, found that lasers have the sensitivity and selectivity to canvas large areas and detect roadside bombs.

Finding IEDs, which account for around 60 per cent of the coalition soldiers’ deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq, is challenging “since large number of chemical compounds in an environment such as that of a bustling city can mask the select few molecules that one is trying to detect,” The Science Daily quoted Dantus as saying.

“Having molecular structure sensitivity is critical for identifying explosives and avoiding unnecessary evacuation of buildings and closing roads due to false alarms,” he added.

The Michigan university team, which is on the look out to find IEDs in a nondestructive method especially in populated areas, must be able to distinguish explosives from vast arrays of similar compounds that can be found in urban environments.

The laser that Dantus developed can make these distinctions even for quantities as small as a fraction of a billionth of a gram.

“The laser and the method we’ve developed was originally intended for microscopes, but we were able to adapt and broaden its use to demonstrate its effectiveness for standoff detection of explosives,” he said.

The laser beam also combines short pulses that kick the molecules and make them vibrate, as well as long pulses that are used to “listen” and identify the different “chords,” The Science Daily reported.