THE USE OF LASERS TO DETECT STRATEGIC AND ENVIRONMENTALLY SENSITIVE MATERIALS

Lasers are becoming more and more commonly used to detect environmentally sensitive materials, especially if ultra-trace detection is required. Over the last few years, the laser ionisation group in Glasgow has been involved in the detection of trace quantities of a number of strategic and pollutant molecules using resonance enhanced multiphoton ionisation in conjunction with time of Eight mass spectrometers, atmospheric ion mobility spectrometers and simple ionisation chambers. The Glasgow group has specialised in the ultra-trace detection of organic explosive materials and the urban atmospheric pollutants NOx (x = 1, 2). The techniques described in the present paper can be applied to the detection of many other environmentally sensitive materials.