title: Challenge of false alarms in nitroaromatic explosive detection--a detection device based on surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy.
abstract: A challenge in the detection of explosives is the differentiation between explosives and contaminants. Synthetic musk-containing perfumes can cause false alarms, as these perfumes are nitroaromatic compounds, which can be mistaken for trinitro toluene (TNT) by some detectors. We present a detection principle based on surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). A stream of the airborne compounds is focused and resublimated on a cooled nanostructured gold surface. We recorded high-resolution SERS spectra of TNT, musk xylene, and musk ketone. The nitroaromatic compounds can be identified unambiguously by their SERS spectra. Even the dominant bands containing nitro-group scissoring and symmetric stretching modes are significantly shifted by the difference in molecular structure.
authors.affiliation: Laser-Laboratorium Göttingen, Photonic Sensor Technologies, Hans-Adolf-Krebs-Weg 1, D-37077 Göttingen, Germany. hainer.wackerbarth@llg-ev.de
authors.forename: Hainer
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wackerbarth
authors.forename: Lars
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Gundrum
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Salb
authors.forename: Konstantin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Christou
authors.forename: Wolfgang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Viöl