MIT is designing the MEMS structures that are being fabricated by Honeywell. There's no need to obtain a sample of the gas or even get close to it. Instead, the detection is made from a safe one or two miles away. It has all kinds of possibilities. The Polychromator is a variation of a conventional gas analysis technique, correlation spectroscopy.
Infrared radiation is passed through a sample gas that imparts a spectral pattern to the radiation.
This pattern is then correlated with the spectrum of a reference gas to provide the identification. Each gas has its own distinct spectral pattern, which can be used to identify the gas. Butler says the limitation of the standard method is that it requires a reference cell of the gas and the testing equipment is bulky. Each element is 10 microns wide and one centimeter long, looks like a long flat beam, and is designed to move up and down. Light from the gas cloud shines on the chip after being collected by an optical device, such as a telescope or binoculars.