4. Ultrashort pulse laser applications

4.1 Application of sapphire: Ti3+ and LISAF: Cr3+ lasers to the detection of atmospheric pollutants

The use of optical spectroscopy, particularly in the Lidar (Light Detection and Ranging) technique, has in recent years enabled direct access to the dynamics of atmospheric pollution. Thus, three-dimensional concentration maps of pollutants such as NO, NO ₂ , SO ₂ or O ₃ with very high sensitivity (parts per billion, ppb) and in real time have been obtained. In particular, this access to dynamics makes it possible to characterize plume dispersion and impact, fix responsibilities, study smog and inversion layer formations or simply obtain an accurate,...