Real-time Visualisation of Greenhouse Gas Plumes

Elliot Scientific (UK) showcases the novel remote sensing and imaging capabilities of the new Firefly-IR laser system by real-time visualisation of greenhouse gas plumes.

Elliot Scientific’s YouTube channel - www.youtube.com/user/elliotscientific - presents video footage captured by scientists at the University of St.

Andrews using M Squared Lasers’ novel Firefly-IR laser to dramatically demonstrate the advanced capabilities of the Firefly-IR system in remote sensing, imaging and molecular spectroscopy.

In this demonstration, the Firefly-IR laser reveals the presence of a notorious greenhouse gas - in this case methane - by using the gas molecule’s characteristic of absorbing specific infrared wavelengths. Firefly-IR’s wide tuning range (in this case tuned to 3.35µm), high-powered nanosecond pulses and high pulse repetition rate enabled the researchers to capture good quality video of the escaping gas cloud.

Elliot Scientific’s video shows how methane, invisible to conventional video cameras under normal lighting conditions, cannot hide when the scene is illuminated by the Firefly-IR laser.

The Firefly-IR provides a unique blend of high brightness coverage of the near to mid-infrared wavelength regions and class-leading output power from a shoebox sized source, bringing new performance capabilities to a variety of scientific and industrial applications.