May 18, 2000

Bowling Green, Ky. - A device to detect landmines is attracting international recognition for Western Kentucky University's Applied Physics Institute.

The instrument that uses a pulsed-neutron emitting probe to analyze elemental composition appears in the quarterly journal of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The United Nations wants to purchase one of the PELAN (Pulsed ELemental Analysis with Neutrons) devices and conduct extensive testing for detection of landmines, said Dr. George Vourvopoulos, director of the Applied Physics Institute. The device was patented in November 1999.

About 25,000 people worldwide are injured each year by landmines, Dr. Vourvopoulos said. "Several countries are terribly infested with mines," including Croatia, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Mozambique, Cambodia and South Africa, he said.

Western's Applied Physics Institute is working on three main research projects utilizing the pulsed fast/thermal neutron analysis technique, which allows for non-intrusive and non-destructive inspection: coal analysis, detection of explosives and detection of illicit drugs.

"The common part of all three projects is that we can identify their chemical elements without seeing or touching the object," he said.

The probe bombards a sample with pulses of fast and slow, or thermal, neutrons. Fast neutrons collide with some atoms, triggering the release of gamma rays. Between pulses, thermal neutrons are captured by other atoms, causing emission of gamma rays. Gamma-ray fingerprints permit accurate determinations of concentrations of hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur and other elements.

"Through the work we have been doing, we have acquired experience and a name for ourselves in elemental analysis," Dr. Vourvopoulos said.

The research by Dr. Vourvopolous and others to develop an elemental coal analyzer for the Department of Energy caught the attention of other federal agencies, including the Department of Defense, that were seeking devices to detect explosives and illicit drugs.

Work on the detection of explosives has branched into three areas: landmines, unexploded ordnance and chemical warfare agents.

Western researchers will be participating in an international meeting on chemical weapons destruction later this month in the Netherlands and in an international conference on explosives and drug detection techniques next month in Crete.
"On a weekly basis, we have national and international contact," Dr. Vourvopoulos said.