Patent ID: 7148684

Claim:
A method for detecting one or more targeted biological agents in air, comprising: (a) collecting a biological agent from the air and concentrating the biological agent in a liquid to form a sample thereof; (b) placing functionalized nanoparticles in the liquid with the biological agent, wherein the functionalized nanoparticles contain nuclei with a quadrupole moment and wherein the functionalized nanoparticles attach to the one or more targeted biological agents to produce assembled nanoparticle-biological agent composites; (c) filtering and drying the assembled nanoparticle-biological agent composites to form a nanoparticle-biological agent sample; (d) placing the nanoparticle-biological agent sample in a NQR spectrometer, the NQR spectrometer comprising: (i) one or more coils used solely as excitation coils to provide a radio frequency magnetic field to excite the quadrupole nuclei in the nanoparticles of the nanoparticle-biological agent sample, and (ii) one or more high temperature superconductor coils used solely as receive coils to detect the nuclear quadrupole resonance signal from the quadrupole nuclei; and (e) using the NQR spectrometer to excite the quadrupole nuclei and detect the quadrupole NQR signal and thereby confirm the presence of the one or more targeted biological agents.