UK's Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) is working in partnership with CLF to deliver a programme of R&D focusing on advanced inspection technologies for security applications based on laser-driven secondary sources.

CLF's Prof. David Neely, a STFC Individual Merit Scientist, has a long collaboration history with the Counter Terrorism and Security Division at Dstl who are interested in novel techniques for stand-off and through-barrier inspection. Together, they developed an innovative technique for ground-penetrating x-ray radar using laser-driven pulses of electrons as the x-ray source. In collaboration with university scientists the depth profile imaging technique was demonstrated using the Gemini laser and published in the Journal of X-ray Science and Technology, see here.

Chris Armstrong is a Dstl-funded industrial scientist in the CLF appointed to lead the planning and operation of a number of paid-for access experiments using CLF's high power lasers Vulcan, Gemini, and Astra. Dstl also support two EPSRC iCASE studentship projects based at the CLF and registered with University of Strathclyde on the subject of development of penetrating inspection techniques.​