The need for tighter airport security fuels demand for faster, more accurate detection of trace-level explosives. APL-UW is working for the first time with the Director of National Intelligence and the FBI on a promising advanced detection method employing laser beams.

It would be used in both a force protection or domestic security standpoint to identify potential explosives that are in among the population. And it could be used in a forensic sense to locate the bad guys before they detonate the explosives.