A team from the University of Colorado Boulder, Caltech, UC Santa Barbara, and three companies, funded by IARPA, are developing a laser-based device called SAURON to quickly identify hazardous aerosols like chemicals or explosives in the air, using frequency comb laser technology for rapid and precise detection in disaster scenarios. This project aims to deploy these devices in various locations to protect against airborne threats, with advancements in laser sensitivity and compactness through integrated photonics technology. Credit: SciTechDaily.com

Picture this disaster scenario in the making: At an industrial plant, a pipe cracks, spraying a cloud of tiny droplets into the air. Workers, however, are in luck. Within minutes, a laser-based device the size of a small suitcase spots the cloud and tells safety crews what’s in it so they know how to respond.

That’s the vision behind a new project from a team of engineers and chemists at the University of Colorado Boulder, California Institute of Technology, University of California Santa Barbara, and three companies. It’s funded by a new contract from the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), part of the federal Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The effort borrows its name, the Standoff Aerosol measUrement Remote Optical Network (SAURON), from the villain in “The Lord of the Rings” book series—a presence who often takes the form of a flaming eye and whose “gaze pierces cloud, shadow, earth.”

“That’s the idea here: an all-seeing eye that can detect hazardous aerosols against a very crowded background of other substances,” said Greg Rieker, professor in the Paul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering and principal investigator for the project.

SAURON, he explained, will zoom in on aerosols, the term for a wide range of tiny particles that float in the air. Some aerosols can contain chemicals that pose serious risks to humans, such as Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons. Ammonium nitrate, a common ingredient in explosives, also forms aerosols. So can SciTechDaily