Extreme photon detection and monitoring of permafrost environments

The North is undergoing profound transformation under the dual pressures of socio-economic development and climate change. To improve our understanding of the dynamics of these changes, new photonic sensor platforms will be developed to monitor indicators critical to the sustainable development of the North, including permafrost thaw settlement, greenhouse gas emissions, and water properties. This research aims to address the following needs:

1) Characterization of deep permafrost

Fiber optic sensors, capable of distributed measurement of temperature, stress, pressure, and groundwater flow, will be inserted into a deep borehole for the safe and sustainable exploitation of industrial minerals below the permafrost base.

2) Detection of greenhouse gases

Silicon-based photonic devices will measure air composition and the accumulation of gases from natural and anthropogenic sources (e.g., CH4, CO and CO2)

3) Monitoring of permafrost ground deformations

Fiber optic sensors buried beneath the surface and adaptive 3D imaging cameras will be installed at a study site. High-resolution monitoring of ground movements will provide crucial information for numerical models describing the behavior of permafrost environments or predicting the stability of northern infrastructure built on permafrost.

4) Continuous measurement of water quality

Autonomous energy sources based on microbial fuel cells will be developed to power microfluidic samplers and silicon photonic sensors to analyze water from thermokarst ponds and wells.

The outcome of our work will be robust and versatile, low-energy platforms that will serve as exceptional sentinels for observing stressed northern environments. These technologies will provide essential information to northern engineers (mining, civil, and geotechnical) and scientists (hydrogeologists, biologists, and chemists) for sustainable development.