New Sensor Technology Looks at Molecular 'Fingerprint'

New sensor technology developed by engineers at the US Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory can now detect chemical, biological, nuclear, and explosive materials much more quickly and efficiently. From the article: "The millimeter/terahertz technology detects the energy levels of a molecule as it rotates. The frequency distribution of this energy provides a unique and reproducible spectral pattern - its 'fingerprint' - that identifies the material. The technology can also be used in its imaging modality - ranging from concealed weapons to medical applications such as tumor detection."

Not new at all?

[nasor]

Um...rotational spectroscopy is not new at all. It's been around for a very long time - at least 50 years, probably longer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotational_spectrosco py [wikipedia.org]

Re:Not new at all?

[ergo98]

Um...rotational spectroscopy is not new at all. It's been around for a very long time - at least 50 years, probably longer.

Maybe you should read the article first. The breakthrough is the extreme degree of sensitivity, coupled with the fact that it's doing the analysis passively (versus targeting molecules with lasers/microwaves).

Re:Sniff, then Peek

[pla]

when the material detection shows an illegal, controlled substance - like anthrax or uranium

Uranium, in itself, does not count as a "controlled" substance. You can, legally, go online and buy anything from uranium metal to large quantities of ore samples MUCH "hotter" than you should ever spend much time near.

However, although you might poison yourself, you can't actually use those (in any realistic quantity) to build an explosive device.

Now, enriched uranium, plutonium, and very-hot fissile byproducts such as cesium-137, you can't get without jumping through legal hoops.

But using the fact that someone has low levels of radiation coming from their car or home should most certainly NOT count as "probably cause".

For comparison, here in New England, we have plain ol' grantite outcroppings hotter than U238 metal (not unrelated, we also have a lot of Radon gas problems, but, not the point).

Looks similar to NIR

[Anonymous Coward]

This teqnique looks similar to Near-InfraRed spectroscopy, or may be that's it - the article does not give any details. Nothing really new - you need to collect "fingerprints" from pure substances first and then you can identify it in a mixture.Wikipedia articles of interest:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near_infrared [wikipedia.org] and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemometrics [wikipedia.org].

Re:This sounds rather expensive.

[Tx]

Considering the war on terror is well on course to cost $1 trillion [msn.com], I guess it's no expense spared to make America safe. After all, it's not real money anyway, just extra 0's on the end of the deficit.

Re:Radioactive plumes

[iamlucky13]

A properly operating power plant does not release any radioactive particles. There is still gamma radiation through the sides walls of the reactor. This is typically less than the background radiation from other sources. The fact that it is measurable is more a testament to the sensitivy of the instruments than the radiation level. It has been said that you receive more radiation watching TV for an hour each day than you do living a mile from a nuclear plant (what wavelengths is another question, though). As the section you quote says, they were observing the effects of radiation on the air molecules that change the way radar reflects off of them. I'm not sure what the effect is...probably just ionization of a few atoms.

If they can detect this, they can definitely detect a plume from a containment breach and hopefully map very accurately how it spreads.

I highly doubt it...

[cr0sh]

First off, take a look at that "robot" again (the picture in the NGEO article). Does that look like any kind of "research robot" you have ever seen? At best, it looks like something an amateur robotics experimenter might build, from a variety of parts picked up from various locations.

Ordinarily, I wouldn't discount such robotics. Over the years, many great things have been done in robotics using COTS "junk" and such by such amateurs. Unfortunately, this whole thing seems to scream "scam" to me. Those transducers on the front seem like speakers ripped from some center channel surround sound speaker. The metal-shell body with small access panels, a cheesy light on top, along with an even cheesier obviously fake dish antenna (with no apparent directional control - what is the point of such an antenna, which if it was real would be directional, and would need directional control for communications on a mobile platform?), which looks like it came from one of those "get cable signal quality without a cable box" scam antenna's from the 1980's. Finally, the wheels and such look like they belong to a cheap radio-control 4WD "monster truck" toy - complete to the "bling chrome" rims. Which wouldn't be much of an issue, except it doesn't look like the thing can turn, unless it is using differential steering instead of Ackerman (sp?) (which would be the normal mode of steering for a RC vehicle unless it was a tank, which the wheels don't appear to be from).

The thing just looks cheap, cheap, cheap - and not at all like something you would expect - even a prototype - to look like for research and development purposes where there is money supposedly being invested. I have seen more highly advanced amateur robots built using COTS parts found on Ebay, by dudes in their garages on shoestring budgets, that were way better built than this thing. Honestly, it looks like something I once cobbled together when I was a kid in grammar school. It just has an air of a scam - it looks like the equivalent of those scam perpetual "energy motors" and their inventors that you see so often. Stuff enough crap together, stick it in front of an audience not versed in what they are seeing, ask for some money for investment - standard scam stuff. Finally - normally I wouldn't comment on this - but what kind of facial expression is that on that man (Manuel Salinas)? He looks somewhere between drunk, stoned, and hit with a 2x4. Maybe he just was having a bad day?

Anyhow - enough of what I think. I did some googling on the guy and his robot. A few minutes of research turned up this blog entry [peeniewallie.com] about the guy and his "technology"...

Scam? Most likely...

Re:Not new at all?

[7ft_Big_Guy]

It's old technology on a new level... Basically it's MRI or Magnetic Resonance Imaging. MR Spectroscopy is probably 40-50 years old, and has been getting into smaller and smaller packages over the years... With new methodologies of Integrated Circuit manufacturing, more sensitive and noise resistant receivers can be built. I's kind of like radar... you have a sample (person, luggage, test tube with chemicals in it etc) and pass it thru a magnetic field... as it passes thru the field, you send a radio frequency pulse out that "scatters" the magnetic moments of the atoms in the sample... as they recombine back to being parallel with each other, they generate a specific frequency that is unique to the molecule they are in. with a bunch of signals coming back from a single sample, you can know what compounds are in the sample and in what proportions... look that up in a simple table and bingo, you have whatever the substance is identified.