Chemoselective Salisbury Screen Absorbers for passive standoff detection of analytes

In this paper we present a chemoselective chaff element for the passive detection of chemical agents. Each chaff element is implemented as a salisbury screen absorber (SSA). The resistive layer of the absorber consists of a conductive polymer that changes conductivity in the presence of an analyte. When the targeted analyte is present, the conductive polymer transitions from a state of low resistivity to approximately the impedance of free space. This change in resistivity causes the chaff element to transition from a state of high reflectivity to an absorbing state.