Abstract
For about a decade, gas detection has known a tremendous interest, due to several reasons: environmental issues, public health, people and building safety, etc... This trend, triggered a spectacular and sustainable need of gas detection means improvement and development, which has grown with both standards sophistication and scope extension. As a matter of fact, the number of research projects related to this particular topic increased: PEPS ANR project, begun in 2010, is one of them. This research project, which is the acronym of Pellet Photonique Sensor, aim at developing a photonic multigas detection system based on thermo-optical effect, thanks to the combination of on one hand, catalitic nanopowders which react selectively with the target gas (hydrogen or carbon monoxide) and on the other hand, an high sensitive to refractive index variations planar photonic component. This thesis manuscript mostly treats of the photonic component design (choice and optimization).