By sending out pulses of infrared light, the Oak Ridge laser system can pick up clues about the composition of the materials surrounding it. When the light pulses hit objects, they refract off of those objects, and some of the light is directed back at the laser system itself. Quartz crystals in the laser system transform these light pulses into a full picture of the chemical composition of the objects you want to check out. If the object's activation profile contains chemical signatures of known explosives, you've identified your bomb.

Using this technique, the researchers' laser gun might eventually be used to detect the chemical signatures that exist in spoiled food. One day, you might have a small laser in your cell phone, which you can whip out at the grocery store to get the best possible produce. As laser technology improves, so will this system; researchers are hoping that sensitivity will go through the roof as cost and size shrink accordingly. Three cheers for not exploding, and for always finding the greenest banana of the lot!

Ray Gun Detects Bombs at Distance [Discovery Channel]

Image of ray gun by ImageZoo

Irony aside, the new compounds — dubbed HBT and G2ZT — reportedly only produce ammonia as their byproduct when they go boom. This is a good thing because many long-term health problems related to air pollution come from the formation of nitrogen oxides.

Of course if you make lots of super-powerful bombs out of HBT or G2ZT, many people probably won't be around to enjoy the cleaner air. But the researchers say another application would be cleaner rocket fuels, which we're going to need as flights into space become more and more common.

Source: American Chemical Society via EurekAlert