In the late 1950s he invented the "Osmopile",[1] a measuring device, dubbed "the first artificial nose," which initiated, through the use of highly sensitive galvanic cells, the electrochemical analysis of air to detect dangerous components.

He began his career in 1938 at the French National Centre for Scientific Research as a "boursier" (fellow) in Georges Urbain's laboratory (dedicated to war chemical studies, protection against poison gas).

By the end of the war in 1944, post war recovery started: Alain Berton's work on the application of absorption and emission spectroscopy in the ultraviolet and infrared,[9] and within the frame of concerns about labor force protection, the specific dosage of atmospheric pollutants became of vital interest in factories to effectively detect and remedy industrial pollution.

Thus, in the 1950s, based on the method of gas chromatography analysis by low temperature followed by pyrolysis, he managed to isolate chlorinated substances and acid vapors components in the air.

Berton’s Osmopile was marketed by Jouan, a laboratory equipment manufacturer founded in the 1940s by a researcher from the Pasteur Institute and acquired in 2003 by Thermo Electron.