Patent ID: 8514378

Claim:
A method for remote optical detection of compounds in a medium wherein a detection measurement is conducted by emitting into the medium from a source of light, called a detection light source, short light pulses covering a wide band of wavelengths with a width of at least 10 nm, and by detecting a portion of the light back-scattered by the medium by means of a unit with temporal resolution, a reference measurement is conducted by emitting into the medium, from a source of light, called a reference light source, with characteristics identical with the detection light source, short light pulses into the medium, and by detecting a portion of the light back-scattered by the medium by means of a detection unit with temporal resolution, the emitted light or the back-scattered light being filtered by a addressable filtering means, simulating the optical spectrum of the light at the working wavelengths of at least one given compound to be sought, by comparing a detection measurement and a reference measurement, in order to infer therefrom the possible presence of the sought compound(s) in the medium, the addressable filtering means are modified dynamically, and a series of reference measurements and a series of corresponding comparisons are carried out for a series of different compounds likely to be present in the medium.