Researchers hope laser could help troops, airports

Posted at: 08/23/2009 11:34 AM | Updated at: 08/23/2009 11:20 PM
By: The Associated Press

LOS ALAMOS (AP) - Los Alamos National Laboratory explosives expert David Moore is driven by the almost nightly news about explosions targeting U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

His team is working to develop a laser that could spot explosives from a safe distance - one goal calls for detection from 55 yards.

He says it's a helpless feeling to see what the enemy can do with as simple a weapon as a roadside bomb.

Moore's team just finished the first year of a three-year project using a laser technology called Optimal Dynamic Detection of Explosives, or ODD-Ex.

The research is aimed at figuring out how to use the laser to identify minute traces of molecules from explosives without picking up traces of everything else in the air.

That could protect combat troops from terrorists or detect explosives at airports.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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