Using Silicon to Deter Bomb Threats

John McLeod, a University of Saskatchewan PhD candidate, has been investigating mesoporous silicon as a potential touch-free bomb detector at the Canadian Light Source.

The synchrotron allows researchers to isolate beams of intense light, providing researchers an effective way of understanding a material’s structure. After McLeod placed silicon that had been exposed to explosives into a beamline, he and his team discovered that despite the two materials not making physical contact, silicon reacted to airborne particles from the explosive. Read the whole article here:

http://www.metronews.ca/news/2012/06/26/synchrotron-researcher-using-silicon-to-deter-bomb-threats.html