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Additive manufacturing for quantum technologies

Jamie Vovrosh, Georgios Voulazeris, Plamen G. Petrov, Ji Zou, Youssef Gaber, Laura Benn, David Woolger, Moataz M. Attallah, Vincent Boyer, Kai Bongs, Michael Holynski

Published Oct 19, 2017• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

Recent advances in the understanding and control of quantum technologies, such as those based on cold atoms, have resulted in devices with extraordinary metrological sensitivities. To realise this potential outside of a lab environment the size, weight and power consumption need to be reduced. Here we demonstrate the use of laser powder bed fusion, an additive manufacturing technique, as a production technique for the components that make up quantum sensors. As a demonstration we have constructed two key components using additive manufacturing, namely magnetic shielding and vacuum chambers. The initial prototypes for magnetic shields show shielding factors within a factor of 3 of conventional approaches. The vacuum demonstrator device shows that 3D-printed titanium structures are suitable for use as vacuum chambers, with the test system reaching base pressures of $5 \pm 0.5 \times 10^{-10}$ mbar, and showing an outgassing rate indistinguishable from a commercial ConFlat flange in this pressure regime. These demonstrations show considerable promise for the use of additive manufacturing for cold atom based quantum technologies, in future enabling improved integrated structures, allowing for the reduction in size, weight and assembly complexity.

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Abstract Recent advances in the understanding and control of quantum technologies, such as those based on cold atoms, have resulted in devices with extraordinary metrological performance. To realise this potential outside of a lab environment the size, weight and power consumption need to be reduced. Here we demonstrate the use of laser powder bed fusion, an additive manufacturing technique, as a production technique relevant to the manufacture of quantum sensors. As a demonstration we have constructed two key components using additive manufacturing, namely magnetic shielding and vacuum chambers. The initial prototypes for magnetic shields show shielding factors within a factor of 3 of conventional approaches. The vacuum demonstrator device shows that 3D-printed titanium structures are suitable for use as vacuum chambers, with the test system reaching base pressures of 5 ± 0.5 × 10−10 mbar. These demonstrations show considerable promise for the use of additive manufacturing for cold atom based quantum technologies, in future enabling improved integrated structures, allowing for the reduction in size, weight and assembly complexity.

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On the use of additive manufacturing for atom trapping components in quantum technologies

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Enabling Technologies for Integrated Atom Chips

Matthew Aldous, Rushton, Jo, Himsworth, Matt

The confinement and control of atomic clouds, at temperatures measured in nanokelvin, has become a valuable tool for physicists. As a source of new physics, development of cooling techniques has led to innovative new ways to probe the nature of reality. Of particular note are experiments carried out on new and exotic states of matter such as the Bose-Einstein condensate, unseen before the advent of these techniques. Likewise, the potential for applications outside of the lab is extensive and encompasses navigation, timekeeping, quantum communication and quantum computing. Manipulating cold atoms in the presence of a so-called ‘atom chip’ (a millimetre-scale electronic device) is currently considered the future of miniaturising these experiments and measurements, but since they still require precisely locked and stabilised lasers and predominantly must take place in the ultra-high vacuum regime, quantum control relies on an extensive and well-established infrastructure of optics, electronics, vacuum chambers and pumps. This encumbrance has slowed down the transition from chip-in-a-lab experiments to lab-on-a-chip technologies. This thesis is an account of work carried out in the development of enabling technologies which will accelerate this transition, including details of prototype devices made using established semiconductor and MEMS planar fabrication techniques. The construction and testing of an apparatus for anodically and eutectically bonding die-scale samples in ultra-high vacuum is described, along with an analysis and characterisation of some of its products.

•Jan 1, 2014•2 citations
Recent advances in the understanding and control of quantum technologies, such as those based on cold atoms, have resulted in devices with extraordinary metrological sensitivities. To realise this potential outside of a lab environment the size, weight and power consumption need to be reduced. Here we demonstrate the use of laser powder bed fusion, an additive manufacturing technique, as a production technique for the components that make up quantum sensors. As a demonstration we have constructed two key components using additive manufacturing, namely magnetic shielding and vacuum chambers. The initial prototypes for magnetic shields show shielding factors within a factor of 3 of conventional approaches. The vacuum demonstrator device shows that 3D-printed titanium structures are suitable for use as vacuum chambers, with the test system reaching base pressures of 5±0.5×10−105 \pm 0.5 \times 10^{-10}5±0.5×10−10 mbar, and showing an outgassing rate indistinguishable from a commercial ConFlat flange in this pressure regime. These demonstrations show considerable promise for the use of additive manufacturing for cold atom based quantum technologies, in future enabling improved integrated structures, allowing for the reduction in size, weight and assembly complexity.
Abstract Recent advances in the understanding and control of quantum technologies, such as those based on cold atoms, have resulted in devices with extraordinary metrological performance. To realise this potential outside of a lab environment the size, weight and power consumption need to be reduced. Here we demonstrate the use of laser powder bed fusion, an additive manufacturing technique, as a production technique relevant to the manufacture of quantum sensors. As a demonstration we have constructed two key components using additive manufacturing, namely magnetic shielding and vacuum chambers. The initial prototypes for magnetic shields show shielding factors within a factor of 3 of conventional approaches. The vacuum demonstrator device shows that 3D-printed titanium structures are suitable for use as vacuum chambers, with the test system reaching base pressures of 5 ± 0.5 × 10−10 mbar. These demonstrations show considerable promise for the use of additive manufacturing for cold atom based quantum technologies, in future enabling improved integrated structures, allowing for the reduction in size, weight and assembly complexity.
Recent advances in the preparation, control and measurement of atomic gases have led to new insights into the quantum world and unprecedented metrological sensitivities, e.g. in measuring gravitational forces and magnetic fields. The full potential of applying such capabilities to areas as diverse as biomedical imaging, non-invasive underground mapping, and GPS-free navigation can only be realised with the scalable production of efficient, robust and portable devices. We introduce additive manufacturing as a production technique of quantum device components with unrivalled design freedom and rapid prototyping. This provides a step change in efficiency, compactness and facilitates systems integration. As a demonstrator we present an ultrahigh vacuum compatible ultracold atom source dissipating less than ten milliwatts of electrical power during field generation to produce large samples of cold rubidium gases. This disruptive technology opens the door to drastically improved integrated structures, which will further reduce size and assembly complexity in scalable series manufacture of bespoke portable quantum devices.
This thesis details the advances made in the use of additive manufacturing to produce magnetic field generating devices and vacuum components for atomic quantum technologies. Cold atomic clouds are used across a suite of quantum sensors including magnetometers, gravimeters and navigational interferometers; as these sensors approach industrial use, they must be translated from laboratory systems to portable devices. The discussion focuses on a number of devices that demonstrate the benefits provided by this approach. Specifically, the devices discussed are a current carrying cylinder trapping device, an ultra-high vacuum (UHV) chamber and a hollow-core coil mount device. This thesis also covers a range of auxiliary developments that have been made alongside the main body of work including a microprocessor-based control system and a pre-cooling stage for cold atom experiments. To begin this thesis reviews the underlying physical phenomena which are exploited when trapping neutral atoms. In particular, it is important to understand the details of the specific case when working with rubidium-87, including the relevant energy levels diagrams and corresponding laser frequencies. This allows for the discussion of the key forces that are used in magneto-optical trapping (MOT) and magnetic trapping including the origin of the magnetic fields generated by these devices using the Biot-Savart law. The key results that are presented in this thesis centre on the efficacy of these devices as atom traps for quantum technologies and atomic experiments. The atom trap cylinder is capable of trapping 108 rubidium atoms at a temperature of 20 µK, demonstrating the feasibility of this approach. The hollow coil mount device presents a viable route for magnetic trapping. Lastly, the UHV chamber operates in the range of 10-10 mbar as necessary for atomic physics experiments. In addition, this thesis reviews the design of a pre-cooling stage for complex atomic experiments and a simplified experimental control system. These are addressed in a systematic approach to the experimental constituents with a comparison between complex fundamental physics experiments and the developments made towards a portable quantum technology device.
A key element in the study of cold atoms, and their use in emerging quantum technologies, is trapping the atoms in an ultra-high vacuum (UHV) chamber. Many methods have been used to trap atoms including atom chips and magneto-optical traps (MOTs). However, the bulky apparatus, and current-carrying coils, used so far in most MOTs restrict the reduction of power and physical size, as required for quantum technology applications. The advent of 3D printing technology now offers a new route to making MOTs with current paths that can be freely shaped and shrunk to several centimetres, thereby helping to reduce the power consumption and simplify the production of the MOT itself. In this paper, we present designs for 3D printed MOTs and analyse their performance by using COMSOL simulations. We predict that the 3D-printed conductors can create magnetic fields with gradients around 15 G/cm and passing through zero, as required for atom trapping, with Joule heating as low as 0.2 W.
Novel quantum technologies and devices place unprecedented demands on the performance of experimental components, while their widespread deployment beyond the laboratory necessitates increased robustness and fast affordable production.We show how the use of additive manufacturing, together with mathematical optimization techniques and innovative designs, allows the production of compact lightweight components with greatly enhanced performance.We use such components to produce a magneto-optical trap that captures approximately 2 × 10 8 rubidium atoms, employing for this purpose a compact and highly stable device for spectroscopy and optical power distribution, optimized neodymium magnet arrays for magnetic field generation, and a lightweight additively manufactured ultrahigh-vacuum chamber.We show how the use of additive manufacturing enables substantial weight reduction and stability enhancement, while also illustrating the transferability of our approach to experiments and devices across the quantum technology sector and beyond.
The confinement and control of atomic clouds, at temperatures measured in nanokelvin, has become a valuable tool for physicists. As a source of new physics, development of cooling techniques has led to innovative new ways to probe the nature of reality. Of particular note are experiments carried out on new and exotic states of matter such as the Bose-Einstein condensate, unseen before the advent of these techniques. Likewise, the potential for applications outside of the lab is extensive and encompasses navigation, timekeeping, quantum communication and quantum computing. Manipulating cold atoms in the presence of a so-called ‘atom chip’ (a millimetre-scale electronic device) is currently considered the future of miniaturising these experiments and measurements, but since they still require precisely locked and stabilised lasers and predominantly must take place in the ultra-high vacuum regime, quantum control relies on an extensive and well-established infrastructure of optics, electronics, vacuum chambers and pumps. This encumbrance has slowed down the transition from chip-in-a-lab experiments to lab-on-a-chip technologies. This thesis is an account of work carried out in the development of enabling technologies which will accelerate this transition, including details of prototype devices made using established semiconductor and MEMS planar fabrication techniques. The construction and testing of an apparatus for anodically and eutectically bonding die-scale samples in ultra-high vacuum is described, along with an analysis and characterisation of some of its products.