How do the X-ray machines at the airport detect illegal substances inside the luggage?
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Fundamentally, they do not. All the hugely expensive security theatre is for profit and politics. The detection rate is minuscule, the false positive rate huge, and the deterrence value near zero. The statistics are kept secret because they are so immensely embarrassing to the companies worldwide who earn billions wasting all our time, and to governments who allow them to tax and cow us using threats and fear.
In Europe, when I checked (2016/17) there were precisely zero detected credible terrorist events at U.K. airports. A few numpties packed fruit and the occasional hunting or sport rifle in the wrong bag, and a few kids forgot they had a pen knife. Those were classed as “positive detections”, but the risk comes from the person, not the device, and there were no actual threats.
In the US, dozens of people get pulled by TSA for shoving a sidearm in a bag, but that’s because the USA is full of idiots and has insanely lax gun laws. Again, not terrorists and those events simply do not warrant the cost or delay or intrusion.
Drugs are almost only caught by accidental search or intelligence led policing. Scanners are nigh on useless.
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