Patent ID: 7755755

Claim:
A method for identifying a contaminant in a gaseous space, comprising: determining a spectroscopic response for a plurality of known contaminants; generating a broadband optical waveform; shaping the optical waveform concurrently at a plurality of different frequencies to match the spectroscopic response for the plurality of known contaminants; transmitting the shaped optical waveform towards an unknown contaminant; receiving a reflected portion of the shaped optical waveform that is reflected by the unknown contaminant; splitting the reflected portion of the shaped optical waveform into a plurality of received optical waveforms; filtering each of the plurality of received optical waveforms at a different one of the plurality of frequencies; recombining the plurality of received optical waveforms to form one received waveform; and determining whether the unknown contaminant correlates to one of the plurality of known contaminants based on the one received waveform.