Proyectos
Designing a Femto-LIDAR System for Detection and Monitoring of Polluting Agents in the Atmosphere over the Aburrá Valley
Resumen
It has been demonstrated that it is important to carry out air quality measurements to determine which components are present in the atmosphere, in what proportions and what damage they may cause to people, plants and/or animals. "Today in Colombia, 74% of the population identifies air pollution as one of the most serious problems in the country. It generates approximately 7000 cases of premature deaths annually, 7400 new cases of chronic bronchitis, 13000 hospitalizations due to chronic respiratory disease and 255000 visits to emergency rooms" [1]. The exploration, study and design of a system based on Femto-LIDAR technology is proposed for implementation in the Aburrá Valley, where by means of filamentation phenomena and supercontinuum generation (also known as White Light Continuum – WLC), which consists in the generation of white light in free space from a high-powered rapid pulse laser, allows remote monitoring of the atmosphere [2-6]. It should be noted that this technique has not yet been evaluated in the tropics, so the development of this work would be a first step to study and evaluate its possible implementation in the region. The Femto-LIDAR technique consists on the emission and transmission of white light in the strata of the atmosphere, which is then collected and analyzed, in this way it is possible to characterize the elements that are present in the atmospheric sample when comparing the transmission or emission spectra with pre-existing databases such as HITRAN. Femto-LIDAR has advantages over conventional methods in that it allows one to choose the height at which the pollutants are to be explored and sampled simultaneously in a single shot of the laser beam, it also allows humidity to be measured [5]. The set of advanced research actions of this project seeks to increase scientific production and generate new knowledge in photonic technologies to detect trace gases, responding to the environmental and biodiversity focus of the CTeI and the Department of Antioquia, so that the region moves definitively towards closing the technological gap, fundamental to address, among others, the critical levels of pollution caused by mobile and fixed sources. It is evident that with the increase in the number of vehicles, population density and industries, air pollution has become a problem for modern societies due to its adverse effects on the environment, renewable natural resources and human health. Optics and photonics focus on optical detection to monitor all aspects of the environment, from global and regional scales to point sensors and industrial processes. Photonics plays a vital role in the achievement of these objectives through detection tools and instrumentation for the sensing of gases in the atmosphere and their identification, based on the LIDAR technique of femtoseconds; a verification of phenomenology under controlled conditions will be performed by simulating and implementing a hollow core fiber infiltrated with gases found in the atmosphere of the Aburrá Valley, such system must be suitable for its interior to generate nonlinear phenomena such as supercontinuum [7, 8]. This allows us to predict some nonlinear optical behavior of the femtosecond laser through the atmosphere in order to identify pollutant gases.
Convocatoria
Nombre de la convocatoria:Convocatoria para el Apoyo a Proyectos de Investigación y Creación Artística en la Universidad Nacional de Colombia-Sede Medellín 2020
Modalidad:Modalidad Única
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