Abstract

In recent history, manmade and natural events have shown us the ever-present need for systems to monitor the troposphere for contaminates. These contaminants may take either a chemical or biological form, which determines the methods we use to monitor them. Monitoring the troposphere for biological contaminants is of particular interest to my organization. Whether manmade or natural, contaminants of a biological origin share a similar constitution: typically the aromatic amino acids tryptophan, phenylalanine, and tyrosine in varying amounts. All of these proteinaceous compounds have the capability to autofluoresce when exposed to ultraviolet radiation. This establishes the basis of the laser induced fluorescence (LIF) technique we use to detect biological contaminants. This technique can be employed in either point or remote detection schemes and is a valuable tool for discriminating proteinaceous from non-proteinaceous aerosols. For this particular presentation I am going to describe a breadboard point sensor I designed and fabricated to detect proteinaceous aerosols.

© 1998 IEEE