X-ray diffraction for explosives detection

From enabling fireworks and mining operations to bonding materials together and powering weapons, explosives have played a storied role in history and society worldwide. Because of their power to realize beneficial or detrimental transformation, it is critically important that explosives be understood scientifically as well as tightly regulated and controlled. This is particularly important in recent times, as the ability to access the building blocks of conventional explosives combined with a growth in the techniques for realizing homemade explosives makes the availability of such materials greater to the general population. Therefore, simply attempting to keep explosives out of the hands of nefarious parties is not strictly possible; rather, it is critically important to develop methods for detecting concealed explosives or components thereof with high accuracy. This chapter focuses on the capabilities and methods associated with X-ray diffraction tomography (XRDT), a powerful tool that provides atomic-level material information throughout the entire volume of a sample of interest. Together, this capability enables better understanding of explosives and their fundamental properties as well as new X-ray inspection architectures for identifying explosives in real-world scenarios.