COCAINE/HEROIN DRUG DETECTION USING SURFACE ACOUSTIC WAVE (SAW) SENSORS

THERE IS A NEED FOR A PORTABLE DETECTOR SYSTEM THAT CAN DETECT ILLEGAL DRUGS, PRIMARILY MARIJUANA, COCAINE, AND HEROIN, ENTERING THE UNITED STATES ABOARD MARITIME VESSELS. A PRELIMINARY INVESTIGATION HAS SHOWN THAT SAW TECHNOLOGY CAN DETECT 10 FEMTOGRAMS (1 X 10-14) WITH A SIGNAL TO NOISE RATIO OF 3:1. IN ADDITION, THESE SENSORS HAVE A DYNAMIC RANGE OF OVER 1,000,000. BY COMBINING SAW TECHNOLOGY WITH FAST CHROMATOGRAPHY, FEMTOGRAM SENSITIVITY AND LOW FALSE ALARM RATE ( 1%) CAN BE ACHIEVED. A PORTABLE INSTRUMENT CAPABLE OF TAKING SAMPLES FROM THE OPEN ENVIRONMENT OR SEALED CONTAINERS IS PROPOSED. THE OBJECTIVE OF THE PHASE I EFFORT WILL BE TO THEORETICALLYPREDICT AND EXPERIMENTALLY MEASURE THE SENSITIVITY OF SAW SENSORS TO MARIJUANA, COCAINE AND HEROIN. BASED UPON THESE EXPERIMENTS, A PROTOTYPE DRUG DETECTION SYSTEM WILL BE DESIGNED AND CONSTRUCTED DURING PHASE II. THE ADVANTAGES OF THE PROPOSED APPROACH ARE: (1) THE INSTRUMENT IS BASED ON AN INNOVATIVE COMBINATION OF FAST CHROMATOGRAPHY AND SAW SENSOR TECHNOLOGY, (2) CONSTRUCTION IS BASED UPON SMALL SIZE AND LOW POWER SOLID-STATE COMPONENTS, AND (3) THE DRUG DETECTION SYSTEM CAN BE PORTABLE, REAL-TIME, AND LOW COST.