Nuclear Quadrupole Interactions in Nuclear Quadrupole Resonance Detection of Energetic and Controlled Materials : Theoretical Study

• There has been a growing interest in nuclear quadrupole resonance (NQR) techniques useful for the detection of explosives and drugs in solid state systems. This paper uses the first-principles one-electron Hartree-Fock theoretical method to study the nuclear quadrupole interaction parameters e (2) qQ and eta for the N-14 nuclei in the explosives RDX and beta-HMX as well as the drugs cocaine and heroin. It has been found in our earlier published investigations reviewed here that there is very good agreement for our calculated e (2) qQ and eta for N-14, for all these four systems, and experiment. We also present our unpublished theoretical results for cocaine with an HCl molecule attached. We successfully explain quantitatively the drastic decrease in e (2) qQ in going to cocaine-HCl from cocaine-free base as well as the observed substantial increase in eta and discuss the implications of these dramatic changes for NQR detection in general.

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Fysik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Physical Sciences (hsv//eng)

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ref (subject category)

art (subject category)