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An optical cavity comprises a set of mirrors between which light can be reflected a number of times. The selectivity and stability of optical cavities make them extremely useful as frequency references or discri­mi­nators. With light coupled into the cavity, a sample placed inside a cavity will experience a significantly increased interaction length. Hence, they can be used also as amplifiers for sensing purposes. In the field of laser spectroscopy, some of the most sensitive techniques are therefore built upon optical cavities. In this work optical cavities are used to measure properties of gas samples, i.e. absorption, dispersion, and refractivity, with unprecedented precision. The most sensitive detection technique of all, Doppler-broadened noise-immune cavity enhanced optical heterodyne molecular spectrometry (Db NICE-OHMS), has in this work been developed to an ultra-sensitive spectroscopic technique with unprecedented detection sensitivity. By identifying limiting factors, realizing new experimental setups, and deter­mining optimal detection conditions, the sensitivity of the technique has been improved several orders of magnitude, from 8 × 10-11 to 9 × 10-14 cm-1. The pressure interval in which NICE-OHMS can be applied has been extended by deri­vation and verification of dispersions equations for so-called Dicke narrowing and speed dependent broadening effects. The theoretical description of NICE-OHMS has been expanded through the development of a formalism that can be applied to the situations when the cavity absorption cannot be considered to be small, which has expanded the dynamic range of the technique. In order to enable analysis of a large number of molecules at their most sensitive transitions (mainly their funda­mental CH vibrational transitions) NICE-OHMS instrumentation has also been developed for measurements in the mid-infrared (MIR) region. While it has been difficult to realize this in the past due to a lack of optical modulators in the MIR range, the system has been based on an optical para­metric oscillator, which can be modulated in the near-infrared (NIR) range. As the index of refraction can be related to density, it is possible to retrieve gas density from measurements of the index of refraction. Two such instru­men­tations have been realized. The first one is based on a laser locked to a measure­ment cavity whose frequency is measured by compassion with an optical frequency comb. The second one is based on two lasers locked to a dual-cavity (i.e. one reference and one measurement cavity). By these methods changes in gas density down to 1 × 10-9 kg/m3 can be detected. All instrumentations presented in this work have pushed forward the limits of what previously has been considered measurable. The knowledge acquired will be of great use for future ultrasensitive cavity-based detection methods.

L'étude des propriétés radiatives des plasmas est un outil important pour réaliser le diagnostic des plasmas. Cette thèse analyse les modélisations de diagnostic utilisant une approche stochastique. La méthode consiste à modéliser un paramètre plasma fluctuant avec une évolution par paliers séparés par des sauts instantanés. Le paramètre plasma est échantillonné selon une fonction de densité de probabilité (PDF), et son évolution est gouvernée par une distribution de probabilités de temps d'attente (WTD), qui est liée à la fonction d'autocorrélation du paramètre plasma considéré. Après une partie théorique présentant les bases de notre modèle stochastique, nous nous intéressons dans une seconde partie à l'application de ce dernier à la cinétique des populations atomiques dans un plasma turbulent et à l'élargissement Stark des raies de l'hydrogène.Nous étudions d'une part l'effet des fluctuations de la température sur les abondances ioniques du carbone dans des conditions des tokamaks, et à un système atomique simplifié des raies de Balmer afin de préparer un diagnostic de la turbulence. Nos résultats montrent que les fluctuations modifient les populations atomiques des systèmes étudiés. Nous intéressons aux profils Stark des raies de Lyman de l'hydrogène pour une seconde application dans un plasma supposé à l'équilibre thermodynamique. Dans ce cas, c'est le microchamp électrique de la composante ionique du plasma qui est modélisé par un processus stochastique. La particularité de cette étude est qu'elle explore pour des températures de l'ordre de l'eV, le régime intermédiaire entre l'approximation statique à haute densité, et l'approximation d'impact à faible densité. / The study of radiative properties of the plasmas (spectra and line intensities) is an important tool for achieving the diagnostic of plasmas. This thesis analyses diagnostic modeling using a stochastic approach. The method consists in modeling a fluctuating plasma parameter by a stepwise constant evolution separated by instantaneous jumps. The plasma parameter is sampled according to a probability density function (PDF), and its evolution is governed by a waiting time (WTD) which is related to the autocorrelation function of the considered plasma parameter. After presenting the theoretical foundations of our stochastic model, we are interested in a second part to the application of the latter for the kinetics of atomic populations in a turbulent plasma and to the Stark broadening of hydrogen line shapes. We apply our model to study the effect of temperature fluctuations on the ion abundances of carbon in conditions that may be encountered in thermonuclear fusion machines (tokamaks) and to a simplified atomic system of Balmer lines, with the aim of preparing a turbulence diagnostic based on line ratios. Our results and show that retaining fluctuations modifies the atomic populations of the system studied.We focus our interest on Stark profiles in a plasma assumed to be in thermodynamic equilibrium for our second application. In this case, it is the electric plasma microfield which is modeled by a stochastic process. The distinctive feature of this study is that it explores, for temperatures of the order of the eV, the intermediate regime between the static approximation at high density, and the impact approximation at low density.