Question: What are the practical applications of your film sensing devices?

Jesus Calvo-Castro answered on 19 Nov 2015:

Hi @JanaSw. The films I use are silica discs which are coated with the organic compounds that I design (called diketopyrrolopyrroles which have been long used as pigments, for example the famous Ferrari red colour). These compounds emit ligth in the absence of for example explosives compounds such as TNT or DNT. However, when there is a explosive compound present (we use vapours of these), there is an interaction between the explosive and the organic compound on surface of the film and they can no longer emit light. As such, I can determine if there are explosives presents or not by monitoring changes to the emision of light 🙂