Nuclear resonances in activation analysis, and particularly, its application to detection of nitrogen based explosives in luggage

A method of scanning an object for an element of interest in the object, comprising:

• accelerating hydrogen or heavier ions detected toward a target to produce excited atoms of the element of interest, said excited atoms deexciting to provide a beam of primary gamma rays of the required energy to be resonantly scattered by the element of interest within the object;
• said primary gamma rays directed toward the object;
• stabilizing the intensity and energy of said beam of gamma rays;
• positioning said object within said beam of primary gamma rays;
• detecting the resonantly scattered gamma rays and producing output signals representative of the energy of said gamma rays;
• and
• analyzing said output signals to determine the concentration of the element of interest.

A method of scanning an object for nitrogen in the object, comprising:

• accelerating hydrogen or deuterium ions directed toward .sup.12 C or .sup.13 C to produce excited atoms of nitrogen, said excited atoms deexciting to provide primary gamma rays of the required energy to be resonantly scattered by the nitrogen within the object;
• said primary gamma rays directed toward the object;
• stabilizing the intensity and energy of said beam of gamma rays;
• positioning said object within said beam of gamma rays;
• detecting the resonantly scattered gamma rays and producing output signals representative of the energy of said gamma rays;
• and
• analyzing said output signals to determine the concentration of the nitrogen.

A method of scanning an object for a drug of interest within said object comprising:

• accelerating hydrogen or heavier ions directed toward a target to produce excited atoms of an element within the drug of interest, said excited atoms deexciting to provide a beam of primary gamma rays of the required energy to be resonantly scattered by the element;
• said beam of primary gamma rays directed toward the object;
• stabilizing the intensity and energy of said beam of gamma rays;
• positioning said object within said beam of primary gamma rays;
• detecting the resonantly scattered gamma rays and producing output signals representative of the energy of said resonantly scattered gamma rays;
• and
• analyzing said output signals to determine the concentration of the element within the object.