The detection of safety-relevant substances, such as explosives, is usually performed either by spectroscopic methods directly on the surface, in a usually complex and highly variant sample matrix, or by complete separation of the sample from the surface with subsequent analysis in the gas phase. The latter is particularly difficult for explosives, due to their typically low vapor pressures and thermal destruction thresholds. This is where the strengths of ambient pressure laser desorption lie. Due to a fast and high energy input, even thermally labile samples can be gently transferred into the gas phase. In contrast to other established laser desorption techniques in mass spectrometry, such as LDI or MALDI, desorption and ionization are performed separately, which allows a high flexibility of the detection technology used.