Technology to detect explosives from greater distances may signal the beginning of the end for full-body scanners

Standing in a full-body scanner at an airport isn't fun, and the process adds time and stress to a journey. It also raises privacy concerns. Researchers now report in ACS' The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters a more precise and direct method for using that "terahertz" (THz) technology to detect explosives from greater distances. The advance could ultimately lead to detectors that survey a wider area of an airport without the need for full-body scanners.R. Kosloff and colleagues explain that using THz spectroscopy by itself is challenging for sensing far-away explosives.