Ballon Generali diameter of . It has been used as advertising billboard for Fortis, then from 2002 for Eutelsat. In 2008, a partnership has been signed with Banque populaire and Airparif : renamed "ballon Air de Paris", its internal illumination system changes the outer colour in real-time, according to the ambient air pollution in Paris, measured by Airparif : from green (good) to red (bad) through orange (poor). This system was completed by an independent lighting (panels light-emitting diode, visible especially at night on the lower part of the shell) stating the air quality near traffic with the same colour code. On
Light-emitting diode 1936, Georges Destriau observed that electroluminescence could be produced when zinc sulphide (ZnS) powder is suspended in an insulator and an alternating electrical field is applied to it. In his publications, Destriau often referred to luminescence as Losev-Light. Destriau worked in the laboratories of Madame Marie Curie, also an early pioneer in the field of luminescence with research on radium. Kurt Lehovec, Carl Accardo, and Edward Jamgochian explained these first light-emitting diodes in 1951 using an apparatus employing SiC crystals with a current source of battery or pulse generator and with a comparison to a variant, pure, crystal in 1953.