Since the mid-1960s, Société Générale d'Optique had been working with the Office National d'Études et de Recherches Aérospatiales (ONERA) and physicist André Girard on the development of several instruments, including the grid spectrometer, a device that enabled infrared spectroscopy to be used. This grid spectrometer was commercialized following SGO's merger with Jobin Yvon, and then abandoned due to excessively high production costs.