Systems and methods for identifying explosives

A system for identifying an explosive, the system comprising a substrate carrying a plurality of sensing devices, each sensing device comprising at least one semiconductor nanostructure having attached thereto a functional moiety selected to interact with an explosive-containing sample, wherein each sensing device is configured to generate a detectable signal responsively to said interaction, and wherein at least two different sensing devices comprise different functional moieties, and

• a signal processor having a circuit configured to extract, from each generated signal, a kinetic parameter describing a respective interaction of said sample with a respective sensing device, thereby to construct an explosive fingerprint indicative of said explosive, said explosive fingerprint being defined as a set of kinetic parameters, at least one parameter for each sensing device, wherein said kinetic parameter comprises a first parameter describing rise of a respective signal and a second parameter describing a descent of said respective signal.