A New Lidar Technique Based on Supercontinuum Laser Sources for Aerosol Soundings: Simulations and Measurements—The PERFALIS Code and the COLIBRIS Instrument

The aim of this article is to present a novel lidar technique, based on supercontinuum laser sources, for aerosol remote sensing. Precisely, we show the feasibility of such supercontinuum lidar aerosols measurements. For that, a novel simulator of the supercontinuum lidar is proposed, as complete as possible, that takes into account different characteristics of an instrument. It simulates different observations and predicts how a lidar signal will behave in various situations. Measurements with a supercontinuum lidar that we have designed are presented. Experimental and numerical results are compared; they show good agreement between them. In particular, it is shown that an aerosol plume can be observed (sounded) with a good temporal and radial resolution. Furthermore, it is discussed how some information on the aerosol size distribution and the optical index could be obtained. Although the present results are limited to short-range measurements, we think that this constraint will be relaxed by technological progress. For this reason, the present study can be considered an initial step in the field of supercontinuum lidar simulations.