Synergy Aviation Inc.

Published purpose

Emission of methane, a greenhouse gas, is a major contributor to climate change. Natural gas and oil pipeline leaks account for about 30% of methane emission. Early detection and mitigation of leaks will reduce emission, benefit the environment, and reduce energy costs. Sensor carrying aircraft are utilized for pipeline monitoring, since they can quickly cover the vast and remote areas over which pipelines are spread. The Project team plan to combine upconversion detection of mid-infrared light with threshold quantum photon number resolving detection. Mid-infrared sensing light is converted into near-infrared light, which can be detected with a thresholded quantum photon number resolving detector. Such detection has been shown to provide a quantum advantage in signal-to-noise ratio when detecting fewphoton laser light in the presence of thermal background (such as solar radiation), due to the difference in the quantum properties of laser and thermal light