Patent ID: 8072337

Claim:
A method for detecting and identifying explosives during the entire lifecycle of the explosive, comprising the steps of: affixing a microradio transponder of nearly invisible submicroscopic size to the explosive at the time of manufacture such that the transponder is placed discretely at the explosive during manufacture or is integrating into the explosive material itself, the microradio transponder having a rectifier including a final capacitor and a hysteretic switch to allow the final capacitor in the rectifier to charge up for a relatively long period of time to permit a foreshortened antenna to be nearly invisible, the antenna including a thread dipole antenna that is of nearly invisible submicroscopic size and including coding to indicate at least the place of manufacture of the explosive; irradiating an area suspected to contain explosives with an interrogating beam; and, detecting radiation from the microradio transponder and the information contained therein at long ranges due to the hysteretic switch despite the small nearly invisible size of the antenna, thereby to trace the explosive manufacturer for providing worldwide tracking and detection of explosives.