System and method for detecting target materials using a vis-nir detector

A method for identifying a target material in a sample, the method comprising:

• collecting a plurality of interacted photons from the sample, wherein the plurality of interacted photons have interacted with the sample;
• directing a first plurality of interacted photons through a filter to generate a first plurality of filtered photons, wherein the filter separates the first plurality of interacted photons into a plurality of wavelengths;
• detecting the first plurality of filtered photons with a VIS-NIR hyperspectral image detector, generating a VIS-NIR hyperspectral image of the first plurality of filtered photons;
• and
• analyzing the VIS-NIR hyperspectral image of the filtered interacted photons by comparing the VIS-NIR hyperspectral image of the filtered interacted photons to a database of known hyperspectral images to identify the presence of the target material.

A system for identifying an target material in a sample, the system comprising:

• an illumination source configured to provide photons that interact with the sample to generate a plurality of interacted photons;
• a first collection optic configured to collect a first plurality of interacted photons where the first plurality of interacted photons includes photons that have interacted with the sample;
• a second collection optic configured to collect a second plurality of interacted photons where the second plurality of interacted photons includes photons that have interacted with the sample;
• a tunable filter configured to filter the first plurality of interacted photons collected from the first collection optic into a plurality of wavelengths to generate filtered interacted photons;
• a VIS-NIR detector configured to detect the filtered interacted photons, wherein the VIS-NIR detector generates a VIS-NIR hyperspectral image of the filtered interacted photons;
• a RGB detector configured to detect the second plurality of interacted photons, wherein the RGB detector generates a RGB image representation of the second plurality of interacted photons;
• and
• a processor configured to analyze the VIS-NIR hyperspectral of the filtered interacted photons and compare the VIS-NIR hyperspectral image of the filtered interacted phtons to a database of known VIS-NIR hyperspectral images in order to identify the target material.