Purdue University researchers have demonstrated a portable instrument that they claim can identify any substance in less than a second, much like the "tricorders" used by the crew of the Enterprise in the Star Trek series. The 20-pound, battery-powered unit combines a mass spectrometer with a desorption electrospray ionization (DESI) source.
"The detection is done in an ion trap?an RF device that traps ions, then lets them out on the basis of their masses, enabling you to be exactly sure what compound you are sensing," said Graham Cooks, Henry Bohn Hass distinguished professor of analytical chemistry at Purdue's College of Science EE-Times