NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Detection of Explosives and CBRN

NATO Co-Chair: Prof. Mauro F. Pereira
Partner Country Co-Chair: Prof. I. Sukhoivanov

Scope and Topics
The main focus of this workshop is on novel materials, concepts and device designs for generating and detecting THz (0.3 THz to 10 THz) and Mid Infrared (10 THz to 100 THz) radiation for the detection of explosives and CBRN agents. CBRN is an initialism for chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear.

CBRN agents, explosives and illegal drugs can be detected by their characteristic absorption spectra at THz frequencies with high selectivity and resolution in applications fields as industrial quality inspection control, customs inspection and security screening. Moreover, MIR and THz radiation has no endangering effects on human beings and enables higher contrast for “soft matter” than x-rays. In comparison to standard optical technologies for wavelengths up to about 2μm, sources and detectors for MIR and THz have not yet reached this level of maturity and there is still a large gap for features like wavelength tunability, spectral purity, high power and room temperature operation, which all are necessary for commercial applications.

The main topics include (but are not restricted to):
- Detection of explosives and CBRNs
- Interaction of MIR or THz radiation with living biological material
- Applications of MIR and THz to medical diagnosis MIR and THz imaging
- Integration of THz and MIR with optical fibers
- Our of the box methods for MIR and THz generation and detection
- Lasers without inversion
- Nonlinear MIR and THz optics
- Difference frequency and other nonlinear methods of generation of THz radiation
- Millimetre wave and microwave generation and detection – bridging the gap to THz.
- Quantum Cascade Lasers
- Quantum Cascade Detectors
- Intersubband Transport and Optics
- THz and MIR Metamaterials
- Intersubband Polaritons and Antipolaritons