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IEEE International Symposium on Inertial Sensors and Systems (INERTIAL)

Trade-offs in size and performance for a point source interferometer gyroscope

Gregory W. Hoth, Bruno Pelle, John E. Kitching, Elizabeth A. Donley

Published Mar 1, 2017• 3 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Point source interferometry (PSI) is a promising technique that could lead to a compact, high-performance gyroscope based on atom interferometry. We consider the trade-offs in size and performance with PSI. In particular, we discuss the sensitivity and dynamic range for a simple PSI gyroscope with an evacuated volume ranging from 1 mm3to 10 cm3. We also discuss the stability required for the initial atomic distribution in order to achieve part-per-million scale factor stability.

DOI
10.1109/isiss.2017.7935666

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Point source interferometry (PSI) is a promising technique that could lead to a compact, high-performance gyroscope based on atom interferometry. We consider the trade-offs in size and performance with PSI. In particular, we discuss the sensitivity and dynamic range for a simple PSI gyroscope with an evacuated volume ranging from 1 mm3to 10 cm3. We also discuss the stability required for the initial atomic distribution in order to achieve part-per-million scale factor stability.
Light pulse atom interferometry can be used to realize high-performance sensors of accelerations and rotations. In order to broaden the range of applications of these sensors, it is desirable to reduce their size and complexity. Point source interferometry (PSI) is a promising technique for accomplishing both of these goals. With PSI, rotations are measured by detecting the orientation and frequency of spatial fringe patterns in the atomic state. These spatial fringes are primarily due to a correlation between an atom's initial velocity and its final position, which is created by the expansion of a cold atom cloud. However, the fringe patterns are also influenced by the structure of the initial atomic distribution. We summarize several methods that can be used to investigate the relationship between the spatial fringe pattern and the initial atomic distribution. This relationship will need to be understood in detail to realize an accurate gyroscope based on PSI.
Point-source interferometry (PSI) is a promising technique that enables the realization of compact and multi-axis cold-atom inertial sensors. However, scale-factor errors in the rotational signal, due to the shape and size of the initial atomic distribution, constitute a major drawback. In this paper, we present a method for calibrating the rotational scale-factor. This method relies on the application of a known bias rotation and a compensation scheme that decouples the PSI sensor from the vehicle’s rotational dynamics. We employ a Kalman filter protocol to track the scale-factor error, paving the way for real-time implementation of the calibration method. Through simulations, we demonstrate the effectiveness of the method and the stabilization of the PSI sensor scale-factor.
Point source atom interferometry, employing optical Raman pulses and a cold atom source, enables measurements of rotation and acceleration in a compact experimental package. This system is uniquely sensitive to rotations in the plane perpendicular to the Raman beamline. Here we discuss our experiment’s sensitivity, stability, systematic errors, and other performance-limiting factors both fundamentaland technical. Our current measurements for the sensitivity to the magnitude and direction of the rotation vector are 0.6 mrad/s and 5 mrad, respectively.
A point source interferometer (PSI) is a device where atoms are split and recombined by applying a temporal sequence of Raman pulses during the expansion of a cloud of cold atoms behaving approximately as a point source. The PSI can work as a sensitive multi-axes gyroscope that can automatically filter out the signal from accelerations. The phase shift arising from the rotations is proportional to the momentum transferred to each atom from the Raman pulses. Therefore, by increasing the momentum transfer, it should be possible to enhance the sensitivity of the PSI. Here, we investigate the degree of enhancement in sensitivity that could be achieved by augmenting the PSI with large momentum transfer (LMT) employing a sequence of many Raman pulses with alternating directions. We analyze how factors such as Doppler detuning, spontaneous emission, and the finite initial size of the atomic cloud compromise the advantage of LMT and how to find the optimal momentum transfer under these limitations, with both the semi-classical model and a model under which the motion of the center of mass of each atom is described quantum mechanically. We identify a set of realistic parameters for which LMT can improve the PSI by a factor of nearly 40.
Using the technique of point source atom interferometry, we characterize the sensitivity of a multi-axis gyroscope based on free-space Raman interrogation of a single source of cold atoms in a glass vacuum cell. The instrument simultaneously measures the acceleration in the direction of the Raman laser beams and the component of the rotation vector in the plane perpendicular to that direction. We characterize the sensitivities for the magnitude and direction of the rotation vector measurement, which are 0.033 ∘/s^{\circ}/\mathrm{s}∘/s and 0.27 ∘^{\circ}∘ with one second averaging time, respectively. The sensitivity could be improved by increasing the Raman interrogation time, allowing the cold-atom cloud to expand further, correcting the fluctuations in the initial cloud shape, and reducing sources of technical noise. The unique ability of the PSI technique to measure the rotation vector in a plane may permit applications of atom interferometry such as tracking the precession of a rotation vector and gyrocompassing.
A point source interferometer (PSI) is a device where atoms are split and recombined by applying a temporal sequence of Raman pulses. During the pulse sequence, an initially trapped cloud of cold atoms is released and allowed to expand, behaving approximately as a point source. The PSI can work as a sensitive multi-axes gyroscope that can automatically filter out the signal from accelerations. The phase shift arising from rotations is proportional to the momentum transferred to each atom from the Raman pulses. Therefore, by increasing the momentum transfer, it should be possibly to enhance the sensitivity of the PSI. Here, we investigate the degree of enhancement in sensitivity that could be achieved by augmenting the PSI with large momentum transfer (LMT) employing a sequence of many Raman pulses with alternating directions. Contrary to typical approaches used for describing a PSI, we employ a model under which the motion of the center of mass of each atom is described quantum mechanically. We show how increasing Doppler shifts lead to imperfections, thereby limiting the visibility of the signal fringes, and identify ways to suppress this effect by increasing the effective, two-photon Rabi frequencies of the Raman pulses. Considering the effect of spontaneous emission, we show that for a given value of the one-photon Rabi frequency, there is an optimum value for the number of pulses employed, beyond which the net enhancement in sensitivity begins to decrease. For a one-photon Rabi frequency of 200 MHz, for example, the peak value of the factor of enhancement in sensitivity is ~39, for a momentum transfer that is ~69 times as large as that for a conventional PSI. We also find that this peak value scales as the one-photon Rabi frequency to the power of 4/5.