Characterization of Composition C4 Explosives using Time-of-Flight Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry and X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy

Abstract

The application of surface analytical techniques such as time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) is explored as a means of differentiating between composition C4 plastic explosives (C-4). Three different C-4 samples including U.S. military grade C-4, commercial C-4 (also from the United States), and C-4 from England (PE-4) were obtained and analyzed using both ToF-SIMS and XPS. ToF-SIMS was able to successfully discriminate between different C-4 samples with the aid of principal component analysis, a multivariate statistical analysis approach often used to reduce the dimensionality of complex data. ToF-SIMS imaging was also used to obtain information about the spatial distribution of the various additives contained within the samples. The results indicated that the samples could potentially be characterized by their 2-D chemical and morphological structure, which varied from sample to sample. XPS analysis also showed significant variation between samples, with changes in the atomic concentrations, as well as changes in the shapes of the high-resolution C 1s and O 1s spectra. These results clearly demonstrate the feasibility of utilizing both ToF-SIMS and XPS as tools for the direct characterization and differentiation of C-4 samples for forensic applications.