The Space CARBon Observatory (SCARBO) European program aims at assessing the monitoring of anthropogenic emissions of Green House Gas (GHG) with the uncovered goal of a sub-daily revisit of the Earth at an affordable cost. One of the main project scopes is the feasibility study of a hybrid constellation including both high accuracy reference missions (Copernicus CO2M or CNES MicroCarb mission) and 24 small-satellites onboarding innovative miniaturized payloads. The key GHG-sensor of the smallsat constellation is the NanoCarb concept, an unprecedently kilogram-class Fourier Transform imaging spectrometer. We are reporting here some preliminary experimental results from a demonstration airborne campaign. A low cost, 2-bands prototype designed for CO2 and CH4 measurement has been developed then integrated over a Falcon-20 from SAFIRE, jointly to SPEX aerosol sensor from SRON. During October 2020, we flew over Spain, Italy, and towards Poland from Francazal airport in Toulouse, France. Even if we did not have the opportunity to flight over a powerplant, a lot of data has been acquired and are being processed. After presented the instrument, mission and data products, we assess the data quality and the reliability of the model. We derive finally an expected sensitivity over CO2 and CH4 columns according to the background respectively about 1.5-2.5% and 5%. We finally demonstrate the operability of this first TRL5 prototype of NanoCarb.
NanoCarb is a miniature Fourier transform imaging spectrometer dedicated to the measurement of atmospheric CO2 and CH4. The key element of NanoCarb is an array of Fabry–Perot microinterferometers having a stepcase shape. Lateral dimensions and height of each step depend on the used material, the focusing lenses, and the targeted optical path difference to be measured. In this paper, we developed a grayscale lithography process for a large surface patterning with high vertical resolution. This process is combined with plasma etching to transfer the as-obtained resist patterns into the silicon substrate. This method is an efficient and quick way for the realization of such arrays into silicon. A low contrast resist (ma-P1225G) was used for better control of the step height, and we investigated the effect of two annealing processes on the contrast curve slope: the soft bake and the postexposure bake. Therefore, combining the two processes leads to a 20 nm step height resolution in resist and 50 nm in silicon.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.