• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.35 no.12
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• pp.3547-3552
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• 2014

Laser Raman spectroscopy is one of the most powerful technologies for standoff detection of hazardous materials including explosives. Supported by recent development of laser and sensitive ICCD camera, the technology can identify trace amount of unknown substances in a distance. Using this concept, we built a standoff detection system, in which nanosecond pulse laser and nanosecond gating ICCD technique were delicately devised to avoid the large background noise which suppressed weak Raman signals from the target sample. In standoff detection of explosives which have large kill radius, one of the most important technical issues is the detection distance from the target. Hence, we focused to increase the detection distance up to 54 m by careful optimization of optics and laser settings. The Raman spectra of hazardous materials observed at the distance of 54 m were fully identifiable. We succeeded to detect and identify eleven hazardous materials of liquid or solid particles, which were either explosives or chemical substances used frequently in chemical plants. We also performed experiments to establish the limit of detection (LOD) of HMX at 10 m, which was estimated to be 6 mg.

• Analytical Science and Technology
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.86-97
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• 2020

Reconstruction and separation of explosive-contaminated overlapping fingerprints constitutes an analytical challenge of high significance in forensic sciences. Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) allows real-time chemical mapping by detecting the light emissions from laser-induced plasma and can offer powerful means of fingerprint classification based on the chemical components of the sample. During recent years LIBS has been studied one of the spectroscopic techniques with larger capability for forensic sciences. However, despite of the great sensitivity, LIBS suffers from a limited detection due to difficulties in reconstruction of overlapping fingerprints. Here, the authors propose a simple, yet effective, method of using chemical mapping to separate and reconstruct the explosive-contaminated, overlapping fingerprints. A Q-switched Nd:YAG laser system (1064 nm), which allows the laser beam diameter and the area of the ablated crater to be controlled, was used to analyze the chemical compositions of eight samples of explosive-contaminated fingerprints (featuring two sample explosive and four individuals) via the LIBS. Then, the chemical validations were further performed by applying the Raman spectroscopy. The results were subjected to principal component and partial least-squares multivariate analyses, and showed the classification of contaminated fingerprints at higher than 91% accuracy. Robustness and sensitivity tests indicate that the novel method used here is effective for separating and reconstructing the overlapping fingerprints with explosive trace.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information Security & Cryptology
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.609-619
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• 2023

Recently, crimes using drones, one of the IoT industries have been continuously reported. In particular, drones are characterized by easy access and free movement, so they are used for various crimes such as transporting explosives, transporting drugs, and illegal recording. In order to analyze and investigate these criminal acts, drone forensic research is highly emphasized. Media data, PII, and flight records are digital forensic artifacts that can be acquired from drones, in particluar flight records are important artifacts since they can be used to trace drone activities. Therefore, in this paper, the characteristics of the deleted flight record files of DJI drones are presented and verified using the Phantom3, Phantom4 andMini2 models, two drones with differences in characteristics. Additionally, the recovery level is analyzed using the flight record file characteristics, and lastly, drones with the capacity to recover flight records for each drone model and drone models without it are classified.

• Analytical Science and Technology
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.1041-1051
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• 2003

Neutron induced prompt gamma activation analysis (PGAA) offers a nondestructive, sensitive and relatively rapid method for the determination of trace and major elements and is proven to be convenient for online analysis of minerals, metals, coal, cement, petrochemical, coating, paper as well as many other materials and products. The technique has found many uses in medicine, industry, research, security and the detection of contraband items. This report reviews the present status and future trends of the PGAA techniques. Requirements for the system are neutron source, high resolution HPGe detectors with a high-voltage power supply, an amplifier, analog-to-digital converter, and a multichannel analyzer for the detection and measurement of prompt ${\gamma}$-ray emit form the neutron capture elements. Introducing a ${\gamma}$-${\gamma}$ coincidence system also improves the quality of the ${\gamma}$-ray spectrum by suppressing the background created from the Compton scattering of high energy prompt ${\gamma}$-rays. A PGAA system using a $^{252}Cf$ neutron source is currently under construction for the on-line measurement of several elements in aqueous samples at KAERI. The system can be applied for the detection of chemical weapons and explosives as well as various narcotics.