High-speed fluorescence detection of explosives-like vapors

In this paper, we report on the preparation of novel cross-reactive optical microsensors for high-speed detection of low-level explosives and explosives-like vapors. Porous silica microspheres with an incorporated environmentally sensitive fluorescent dye are employed in high-density sensor arrays to monitor fluorescence changes during nitroaromatic compound (NAC) vapor exposure. The porous silica-based sensor materials have good adsorption characteristics, high surface areas, and surface functionality to help maximize analyte-dye interactions. These interactions occur immediately upon vapor exposure, i.e., in less than 200 ms and are monitored with a high-speed charge-coupled device camera to produce characteristic and reproducible vapor response profiles for individual sensors within an array. Employing thousands of identical microsensors permits sensor responses to be combined, which significantly reduces sensor noise and enhances detection limits. Normalized response profiles for 1,3-dinitrobenzene (1,3-DNB) are independent of analyte concentration, analyte exposure time, or sensor age for an array of one sensor type. Explosives-like NACs such as 2,4-dinitrotoluene and DNB are detected at low part-per-billion levels in seconds. Sensor-analyte profiles of some sensor types are more sensitive to low-level NAC vapor even when in a higher organic vapor background. We show that single-element arrays permit the detection of low-level nitroaromatic compound vapors because of sensor-to-sensor reproducibility and signal averaging.