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Journal of Physics B Atomic Molecular and Optical Physics

Atom gyroscope with disordered arrays of quantum rings

Daniel J Dayon, John R. E. Toland, Christopher P. Search

Published May 19, 2010• 6 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Atom interferometry is of considerable interest in part because of the ability to interferometrically detect inertial rotations via the Sagnac effect with a potential sensitivity 1010 greater than optical gyroscopes. It has been shown recently that a coherently coupled array of identical interferometers can significantly enhance the sensitivity to rotations due to the appearance of transmission bands as a function of the inertial rotation rate Ω. Here we consider phase coherent transport of atomic matter waves in a chain of ring interferometers with a single occupied transverse mode in the presence of a rotation, Ω, and study the effect of variations in the size of the rings. We show that for randomly sized rings, the entire array functions as a highly sensitive Sagnac interferometer provided the level of random size fluctuations does not exceed a few per cent of the mean size. We also analyse how the use of individual defect states and controlled variations of the sizes in the array can be used to further enhance the sensitivity by creating narrow transmission resonances inside of a zero transmission gap.

DOI
10.1088/0953-4075/43/11/115302

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Atom interferometry is of considerable interest in part because of the ability to interferometrically detect inertial rotations via the Sagnac effect with a potential sensitivity 1010 greater than optical gyroscopes. It has been shown recently that a coherently coupled array of identical interferometers can significantly enhance the sensitivity to rotations due to the appearance of transmission bands as a function of the inertial rotation rate Ω. Here we consider phase coherent transport of atomic matter waves in a chain of ring interferometers with a single occupied transverse mode in the presence of a rotation, Ω, and study the effect of variations in the size of the rings. We show that for randomly sized rings, the entire array functions as a highly sensitive Sagnac interferometer provided the level of random size fluctuations does not exceed a few per cent of the mean size. We also analyse how the use of individual defect states and controlled variations of the sizes in the array can be used to further enhance the sensitivity by creating narrow transmission resonances inside of a zero transmission gap.
The utilization of atom interferometry for gyroscopes is of considerable interest because the detection of inertial rotations via the Sagnac effect has a potential 1010{10}^{10}1010 greater sensitivity than optical gyroscopes. Here we analyze, in the presence of a rotation $\ensuremath{\Omega}$, phase-coherent transport of atomic matter waves in a one-dimensional chain of NNN ring interferometers in which the sizes of the rings are chirped symmetrically about the center ring. The gyroscope scale factor of the area-chirped array for $N\ensuremath{\lesssim}10$ is several orders of magnitude larger than that for the unchirped array, which itself is larger than the scale factor of a Mach-Zehnder interferometer with the same enclosed area. This enhancement is achieved with total enclosed areas that are larger or smaller than that of the unchirped array by less than 25%. As such, the area chirp achieves rotation sensitivities with $N\ensuremath{\lesssim}10$ interferometers that would normally require $N\ensuremath{\gg}100$ rings of identical sizes.
The ability to interferometrically detect inertial rotations via the Sagnac effect has been a strong stimulus for the development of atom interferometry because of the potential 1010{10}^{10}1010 enhancement of the rotational phase shift in comparison to optical Sagnac gyroscopes. Here we analyze ballistic transport of matter waves in a one-dimensional chain of NNN coherently coupled quantum rings in the presence of a rotation of angular frequency $\ensuremath{\Omega}$. We show that the transmission probability, TTT, exhibits zero transmission stop gaps as a function of the rotation rate interspersed with regions of rapidly oscillating finite transmission. With increasing NNN, the transition from zero transmission to the oscillatory regime becomes an increasingly sharp function of $\ensuremath{\Omega}$ with a slope $\ensuremath{\partial}T/\ensuremath{\partial}\ensuremath{\Omega}\ensuremath{\sim}{N}^{2}$. The steepness of this slope dramatically enhances the response to rotations in comparison to conventional single ring interferometers such as the Mach-Zehnder interferometer and leads to a phase sensitivity well below the quantum shot-noise limit typical of atom interferometers.
Matter-wave interferometry with atoms propagating in a guiding potential is expected to provide compact, scalable and precise inertial sensing. However, a rotation sensing device based on the Sagnac effect with atoms guided in a ring has not yet been implemented despite continuous efforts during the last two decades. Here we discuss some intrinsic effects that limit the coherence in such a device and propose a scheme that overcomes these limitations and enables a multi-pass guiding Sagnac interferometer with a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) on a chip in a ring potential. We analyze crucial dephasing effects: potential roughness, phase diffusion due to atom-atom interactions and number uncertainty, and phase fluctuations. Owing to the recent progress in achieving high momentum beam splitting, creating smooth guides, and manipulating the matter-wavepacket propagation, guided interferometry can be implemented within the coherence time allowed by phase diffusion. Despite the lower particle flux in a guided Sagnac ring and the miniaturization of the interferometer, the estimated sensitivity, for reasonable and practical realizations of an atom chip-based gyroscope, is comparable to that of free-space interferometers, reaching 45 nrads^{-1}Hz^{-1/2}. A significant improvement over state-of-the-art free-space gyrocope sensitivities can be envisioned by using thermal atoms instead of a BEC, whereby the interferometer can be operated in a continuous fashion with the coherence limited by the scattering rate of the atoms with the background gas. Taking into account the sensitivity times length of the interferometer as the figure of merit which takes into account compactness, our configuration is expected to deliver a potential improvement of 2-4 orders of magnitude over state-of-the-art free-space gyroscopes for a BEC, and 4-6 orders of magnitude for thermal atoms.
We propose a novel implementation of a trapped- atom Sagnac gyroscope based on the interference between matter- wave solitons confined around an optical microring resonator. Our integrated nanophotonic approach to trapped atom interferometry combines the long-term stability and quantum-limited sensitivity of ultracold matter-wave interferometers with the robustness, scalability and low power operation of nanophotonic architectures. The use of optical microresonators for atomic confinement ensures disorder-free symmetric waveguides for the confined atoms, a high degree of vibration insensitivity owing to the reciprocal structure of the waveguide, and enhanced bias and scale-factor stability via concurrent feedback stabilization of the microresonator. We have performed detailed quantum simulations based on demonstrated experimental parameters to confirm stable dispersion-free propagation of matter-wave solitons around the microresonator and the appearance of high contrast interference fringes due to the accrued Sagnac phase shift. We estimate the shot-noise limited rotation sensitivity of this gyroscope to be 0.8 μrad/s/Hz1/2for single-loop propagation of the solitons around a microring of radius 1 mm, with the possibility of substantial improvements via multiloop propagation of the solitons, fabrication of microring resonators of larger diameter, and the use of quantum-correlated states such as spin- squeezed quantum states. The proposed device illustrates the benefits of harnessing quantum many-body states such as matter- wave solitons for quantum-enhanced inertial sensing applications.
We reports improvements to our Sagnac effect matter-wave interferometer gyroscope. This device now has a short-term rotation-rate sensitivity of 6 × 10 -10 rad s -1 over 1 s of integration, which is the best publicly reported value to date. Stimulated Raman transitions are used to coherently manipulate atoms from counterpropagating thermal beams, forming two interferometers with opposite rotation phase shifts, allowing rotation to be distinguished from acceleration and laser arbitrary phase. Furthermore, electronically compensating the rotation-induced Doppler shifts of the Raman lasers allows operation at an effective zero rotation rate, improving sensitivity and facilitating sensitive lock-in detection readout techniques. Long-term stability is promising but not yet fully characterized. Potential applications include inertial navigation, geophysical studies and tests of general relativity.
In recent years there has been significant activity in research and development of high sensitivity accelerometers and gyroscopes using atom interferometers. In these devices, a fringe shift in the interference of atom de Broglie waves indicates the rotation rate of the interferometer relative to an inertial frame of reference. In both optical and atomic conventional Sagnac interferometers, the resultant phase difference due to rotation is independent of the wave velocity. However, we show that if an atom interforemeter is enclosed in a Faraday cage which is at some potential, the phase difference of the counter-propagating waves is proportional to the inverse square of the particle velocity and it is proportional to the applied potential. This is due to Aharonov-Bohm effect and it can be used to increase the rotation sensitivity of atom interferometers.