Patent ID: 7486769

Claim:
A multi-modal contraband detection system for detecting contraband materials in one or more target objects, said system comprising: a proton beam accelerator device for producing a high energy beam of protons at a specific energy; a single proton beam target for generating one or more gamma ray beams in response to impinging high energy beam of protons, said generated one or more gamma ray beams being simultaneously directed to a target object; and, a plurality of detector means associated with the target object, said plurality of detector means being utilized simultaneously to provide multiple modes of detecting presence of contraband materials in each said target object by utilizing a same proton beam, said multiple modes of detection comprising: nuclear resonance fluorescence as detected by a nuclear resonance fluorescence detector array to detect fluorescing reaction with said target object on an incoming proton beam side of said target object; nuclear resonance absorption and/or non-resonant absorption as detected by respective resonant and non-resonant gamma ray detectors; and, photo-fission phenomena as detected by a gamma-insensitive neutron detector array to detect neutrons emitted in a photo-fission reaction with material included in said target object, wherein said system enables detection of contraband materials by detecting both nuclear resonance fluorescence and/or nuclear resonance absorption and photo-fission reaction in a single scan.