Conjugated polymer sensors for explosive vapor detection

Explosive sensing is a promising, emerging application for conjugated polymers. One exciting potential area of application is to clear landmines left after military actions. In this work, we demonstrate three ways to detect 10 partsper- billion of the model explosive, 1,4-dinitrobenzene (DNB): by monitoring fluorescence intensity, by measuring fluorescence lifetime, and by distributed-feedback (DFB) laser emission. A quenching of the fluorescence is observed upon DNB exposure. The reversibility of the quenching process has been demonstrated by purging with nitrogen.