Airport scanner technology uses X-ray diffraction to identify materials and detect explosives

The scanner, which is being developed by researchers at Nottingham Trent and Cranfield Universities, can identify the presence of hidden explosives or illegal drugs in milliseconds.

The conventional X-ray scanners used in airports produce an image of an object and can identify broadly whether it consists of metal or organic material, but they cannot determine definitively what substance it is made from, according to Prof Paul Evans at Nottingham Trent University.

“You therefore have problems discriminating between explosive substances and other substances,” said Evans, who developed the technology alongside Prof Keith Rogers at the Cranfield Forensic Institute.

This can lead to false alarms, where passengers and their items must be searched by hand, slowing down security checks and creating long queues of frustrated passengers.

The new technology, known as Halo, uses the way an object diffracts, or scatters, X-rays to identify precisely what it is made of, in just 100 milliseconds.

X-ray diffraction is used widely in laboratories to identify materials. However, the process traditionally uses a thin beam, low power X-ray, which takes a long time to collect the desired information.