Application of optical techniques to detect chemical and biological agents

Chemical or biological contamination, due to natural or man-made disasters, represents a severe concern for safety and security of people, and of the environment. Chemical agents (CAs) and biological agents (BAs) are commonly used for a number of civilian and military applications, and can be deployed as a weapon with terroristic purposes. Therefore, it is necessary to develop specific systems aimed at preventing or reducing the consequences of the spread of these agents. To this end, the authors have developed optical systems to detect (LIDAR) and identify (DIAL) CAs, and to detect BAs (fluorescence technique). These systems and technologies will be presented in this work together with the analysis and discussion of the results obtained.