Myriam Raybaut is Awarded for her Work on Pollutant Detection Using Lasers

Myriam Raybaut is a scientist at ONERA. She has received the Edouard Branly Prize for her work in wave physics on the development of optical parametric oscillators* (nesCOPO** type) and their application to the detection and measurement of natural or anthropogenic pollutants.

It is in fact one of the specialties of the laboratory where Myriam Raybaut works - Laser Sources and Metrology. She develops customized tunable and compact laser sources for innovative applications. This is because, once they are "pumped" by adequate lasers, the OPO have very specific spectral properties: their wavelengths can be tuned with high resolution to values ranging, for example, between 1.5 and 4µm. In addition, these sources have a high potential for miniaturization, paving the way for robust and compact gas analysis systems.

Miniature "NesCOPO" for the detection of pollutants,
ready to leave the lab for industry

This property allows these laser sources in the infrared ranges to detect pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions such as CO2, CH4, SO2, N2O, etc., in the atmosphere, even in trace amounts. This technology is currently being transferred to industry, with the company Blue Industry and Science. ONERA is also involved in the development of lidars with ESA and CNES, to validate the potential of this technology applied to the analysis of atmospheric pollutants from satellites.

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* An OPO is an optical device using a non-linear crystal that allows the wavelength of an incident laser beam to be adjustably transposed into another wavelength range, thus constituting a tunable laser source..

OPO principle (2nd order non-linear conversion)
The wavelength of the signal (green) is varied by changing
the orientation of the crystal 

** NesCOPO = Nested Cavity doubly resonant OPO - allowing a single frequency emission over a wide spectral range