Laser and environmental monitoring method

A method of operating a building monitoring system comprising:

• (a) emitting a laser beam pulse of less than about 50 femtoseconds;
• (b) shaping the laser beam pulse;
• (c) detecting characteristics of an environmental agent in the building ventilation system in response to steps (a) and (b), without requiring iteration;
• (d) using a programmable controller to determine a characteristic of the agent, and positively identifying the agent, which was previously unknown to the controller if the agent is determined to be harmful;
• and
• (e) the preceding steps being performed without inversion procedures.

A method of operating a system comprising:

• (a) emitting six or less transform limited laser pulses of different pre-determined shapes at an environmental airborne specimen;
• (b) sensing characteristics of the airborne specimen acted upon by at least one of the pulses;
• (c) automatically determining if the airborne specimen is an acceptable agent or an undesirable agent;
• (d) using software instructions to access memory containing a library of characteristics of acceptable and undesirable environmental airborne specimens, and using software instructions to compare the real-time sensed characteristics to those stored in the memory;
• and
• (e) the preceding steps being free of inversion procedures.

A method of operating a system comprising:

• (a) emitting shaped laser pulses of different pre-determined shapes at a specimen with no iteration;
• (b) monitoring the specimen in a repetitive manner;
• (c) electronically comparing characteristics obtained in response to the pulse interaction with the specimen, to a library database of acceptable background characteristics;
• and
• (d) using a programmable controller to determine if an undesirable disease is present in the specimen and if so, identifying the disease.

A method of operating a system comprising:

• (a) emitting an initial transform limited laser beam pulse at a specimen in air outside of a laboratory;
• (b) detecting a mass spectrum using the transform limited laser beam pulse;
• (c) automatically emitting no more than six pre-determined shaped laser pulses after steps (a)-(b), free from an evolutionary learning program and without iteration;
• (d) detecting mass spectra using the no more than six pre-determined shaped laser pulses;
• (e) automatically and electronically analyzing the detected mass spectra and identifying the specimen;
• (f) performing the previous steps without inversion procedures;
• (g) storing the mass spectra in a memory library;
• (h) monitoring an environment of unknown chemicals;
• and
• (i) automatically determining which chemicals in the environment are acceptable and which are unacceptable.

A method of operating a system comprising:

• (a) emitting different shaped laser pulses at possibly harmful specimens, the different shaped laser pulses being automatically chosen from shaped laser pulses previously stored in the memory of a controller;
• (b) monitoring the specimens with a transform limited laser pulse without requiring inversion procedures;
• (c) comparing mass spectra with the mass spectra of acceptable background chemicals;
• and
• (d) automatically identifying harmful items based at least in part on the mass spectrum comparisons.