Laser Desorption of Traces of Explosives in Ion Mobility Spectrometry

The efficiency of a YAG:Nd3+laser (λ = 1064 nm) and a diode continuous laser (λ = 440 nm) to initiate laser desorption of traces of trinitrotoluene (TNT) and cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine (RDX) is quantitatively compared with use of mass spectrometry. It is shown that a pulsed neodymium laser is more promising for creating a device of contactless sampling for ion mobility spectrometers