News - Liquid analysing scanner to end the 100ml liquid limits at airports

[HEXUS]

Insight100 laser detector system was trailed at Heathrow and other airports around Europe.

Read more.

[Domestic_Ginger]

The analytical method (Raman from what I can gather) itself is quite old and as all spectroscopic methods has its limitations. Raman isn't widely used as from what I can recall its not qualitative and there are more accurate methods for most of its applications.

Impressive to get it working in a 'non intrusive' fashion.

[Whiternoise]

Yup, it's a Raman spectrometer:

http://www.cobaltlight.com/technolog...n-spectroscopy

There are more accurate methods for individual use cases, but Raman is pretty versatile and is one of the few methods you can really use to fingerprint a substance non destructively. It's becoming more common as detectors and optics are getting better, the typical issue is that the Raman response is so small that you need very expensive filters and high sensitivity cooled cameras to detect anything. Basically you shine laser light at a target, take the reflected light and subtract the laser wavelength. You're then left with the Raman signal which goes into a spectrometer.

It's pretty good for saying "Is this substance one of these things?", but it's a lot harder to say "This thing is definitely this" because, like IR spectroscopy, you're relying on a database of known substances with peaks in particular places.

By a small signal we're talking 10^-5% of the outgoing light is returned, and that's before you include filter/optics losses, quantum efficiency of the detector and so on. These systems are expensive.

[Strawb77]

I`d like to know how it does tin cans (as in the picture above)? and doesn`t the colour of the bottle etc, have any effect?

[valhar2000]

Another victory for security theater!