Universal Surface Scanner Detected

mcgrew writes to tell us that scientists at the University of California, San Diego, have created a new system that can test any surface for just about anything. "Their idea uses a thin layer of metal drilled with nanoscale holes, laid onto the surface being tested. When the perforated plate is zapped with laser light, the surface plasmons that form emit light with a frequency related to the materials touching the plate. A sensitive light detector is needed to measure the frequency of light given off. The team says devices using this approach can be small and portable, will work on very low power, and could detect everything from explosives to bacteria. All that needs to be done now is build a system able to decode the light signatures."

Comments

Bacteria?

[hcdejong]

Would this type of detector be able to differentiate between species of bacteria?

I happen to be an expert in SPR

[seeker_1us]

Using nanoholes is just a variation on the grating method, and these people are combining it with SPR polarization work trailblazed by a Russian scientist that I had the good fortune to meet several years go. Nice gadget, but it's evolutionary, not revolutionary.

And the optical sensor, while being non-trivial, doens't just sense magically everything from explosives to bacteria. You have to chemically engineer receptors . That's also very non-trivial.

yes, but can it detect explosive bacteria?

[lysergic.acid]

if it's just down to detecting the frequency of the light emitted, couldn't some sort of photovoltaic or photoelectric sensor be designed so that you wouldn't have to chemically engineer receptors for different kinds of surfaces, but rather just program the software to identify the surface material?

Food Tricorder

[Tetsujin]

Maybe now we will be able to determine what can be found McDonald's hamburger patty.

You laugh, but what I'd like to do with such a thing ain't so far off the mark from that...

Basically, my wife has Celiac disease - if she eats food that has wheat flour or bread crumbs in it (even in very small quantities) it makes her sick. Long-term consequences from repeated poisonings include a higher risk of intestinal cancer...

So the problem is, eating out, it's often hard to know what's safe to eat. If I could get some kind of scanner that could detect gluten in food... that would be awesome.

Of course, from the way this thing works it sounds like the gluten would have to be somewhere near the surface of the food... So I guess it's way too early to get excited...