Neonicotinoids, including imidacloprid, are extensively used for plant protection against insects. Unfortunately, these effective pesticides are one of the reasons for the decline of the bee population in recent decades. Ensuring application of minimal pesticide quantity and preventing excess requires a fast method for monitoring the coverage on plants. We present a new, method based on multiphoton electron extraction spectroscopy (MEES), for detecting, quantifying and mapping of imidacloprid coverage on plants. Imaging and quantitative analyses were demonstrated on several plant surfaces including olive and mint leaves and orange peel. Method provides both low detection limits (down to nanogram level) and good trueness. This method is fast and can be directly performed with no sample pre-treatment, thus, it is a good candidate for field analyses.

新烟碱类，包括吡虫啉，被广泛用于植物对昆虫的保护。不幸的是，这些有效的农药是近几十年来蜜蜂数量下降的原因之一。确保使用最小数量的农药并防止过量使用，需要一种监测植物覆盖率的快速方法。我们提出了一种基于多光子电子萃取光谱（MEES）的新方法，用于检测，定量和绘制吡虫啉在植物上的覆盖率。在包括橄榄叶，薄荷叶和桔皮在内的几种植物表面上进行了成像和定量分析。该方法提供了低检测限（低至纳克级）和良好的真实性。该方法快速且无需样品预处理即可直接进行，因此，它是进行现场分析的理想选择。