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Joint Conference of the European Frequency and Time Forum and IEEE International Frequency Control Symposium (EFTF/IFCS)

A Portable, Compact Cold Atom Physics Package for Atom Interferometry

Michael J. Mazon, Gebriel H. Iyanu, He Wang

Published Apr 1, 2019• 3 citations
Publisher

Abstract

In this paper, we report the design, implementation and experimental results of a portable, compact cold Cs atom physics package for atom interferometer experiments. With the physics package, we trapped and deep-cooled Cs atoms to ultracold temperatures of <; 5 μK. The deep-cooling method used in this work is relatively simple and effective, with which we obtained controlled temperature adjustment between 5 and 80 μK. The portability of the physics package makes it suitable for implementing atom interferometry with various interrogation configurations and relative orientations. The system is also good for studies of compact cold atom frequency standards. With the Raman laser and light pulse manipulation system we developed in this work, this portable cold Cs atom physics package is being used for atom interferometer experiments in our laboratory.

DOI
10.1109/fcs.2019.8856094

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In this paper, we report the design, implementation and experimental results of a portable, compact cold Cs atom physics package for atom interferometer experiments. With the physics package, we trapped and deep-cooled Cs atoms to ultracold temperatures of <; 5 μK. The deep-cooling method used in this work is relatively simple and effective, with which we obtained controlled temperature adjustment between 5 and 80 μK. The portability of the physics package makes it suitable for implementing atom interferometry with various interrogation configurations and relative orientations. The system is also good for studies of compact cold atom frequency standards. With the Raman laser and light pulse manipulation system we developed in this work, this portable cold Cs atom physics package is being used for atom interferometer experiments in our laboratory.
In this talk, we will discuss our latest experimental results of a compact, portable cold Cs atom interferometer. The portability of the atomic physics package makes it suitable for implementing atom interferometry with various interrogation configurations and relative orientations. In addition, we will also briefly report the progress on experiments of Cs Rydberg atoms for RF E-field sensing. Our work is aimed at investigating the engineering and atomic physics limitations to the devices’ size, weight and power consumption (SWaP) and reliability.
Atom interferometry has hugely benefitted from advances made in cold atom physics over the past twenty years, and ultra-precise quantum sensors are now available for a wide range of applications [1]. In particular, cold atom interferometers have shown excellent performances in the field of acceleration and rotation measurements [2,3], and are foreseen as promising candidates for navigation, geophysics, geo-prospecting and tests of fundamental physics such as the Universality of Free Fall (UFF). In order to carry out a test of the UFF with atoms as test masses, one needs to compare precisely the accelerations of two atoms with different masses as they fall in the Earth’s gravitational field. The sensitivity of atom interferometers scales like the square of the time during which the atoms are in free fall, and on ground this interrogation time is limited by the size of the experimental setup to a fraction of a second. Sending an atom interferometer in space would allow for several seconds of excellent free-fall conditions, and tests of the UFF could be carried out with precisions as low as 10-15 [4]. However, cold atoms experiments rely on complex laser systems, which are needed to cool down and manipulate the atoms, and these systems are usually very sensitive to temperature fluctuations and vibrations. In addition, when operating an inertial sensor, vibrations are a major issue, as they deteriorate the performances of the instrument. This is why cold atom interferometers are usually used in ground based facilities, which provide stable enough environments. In order to carry out airborne or space-borne measurements, one has to design an instrument which is both compact and stable, and such that vibrations induced by the platform will not deteriorate the sensitivity of the sensor. We report on the operation of an atom interferometer on board a plane carrying out parabolic flights (Airbus A300 Zero-G, operated by Novespace). We have constructed a compact and stable laser setup, which is well suited for onboard applications. Our goal is to implement a dual-species Rb-K atom interferometer in order to carry out a test of the UFF in the plane. In this perspective, we are designing a dual-wavelength laser source, which will enable us to cool down and coherently manipulate the quantum states of both atoms. We have successfully tested a preliminary version of the source and obtained a double species magneto-optical trap (MOT).
This thesis details the construction of a portable platform for cold atom experiments, as part of the European iSense project. This culminated in the demonstration of a working portable cold atom interferometer to the praise of the EC and reviewers during the final project meeting. Reductions in the size, weight and power consumption of all the crucial components for a cold atom system such as lasers, optics, magnetic field generation and electronics have been realised. These novel components have been integrated into a portable device that has been transported and operated by just two people. The completed device weighs 63 kg and uses 240 W power in a volume of just 61.1 litres. The system has generated a cloud of (6.7±0.7)x 106^66 rubidium-87 atoms at a temperature of 4.4 μK in 2 seconds using a mirror-MOT setup. The device has successfully performed atom interferometry in the form of a Ramsey interferometer both at the University of Birmingham, UK and also at an office in Brussels, BE after a journey of 570 km. A measurement of the hyperfine splitting of the ground state of rubidium-87 was performed and gives an uncertainty of δ\deltaδω\omegaω/ω\omegaω = 5.2 × 10−^-−7^77. The theoretical limit of the sensitivity to gravity of the iSense system is 3.9 μGal/√Hz.
Abstract This article proposes a new physics package to enhance the frequency stability of the space cold atom clock with the advantages of a microgravity environment. Clock working processes, including atom cooling, atomic state preparation, microwave interrogation, and transition probability detection, are integrated into the cylindrical microwave cavity to achieve a high-performance and compact physics package for the space cold atom clock. We present the detailed design and ground-test results of the cold atom clock physics package in this article, which demonstrates a frequency stability of 1.2 × 10−12 τ −1/2 with a Ramsey linewidth of 12.5 Hz, and a better performance is predicted with a 1 Hz or a narrower Ramsey linewidth in microgravity environment. The miniaturized cold atom clock based on intracavity cooling has great potential for achieving space high-precision time-frequency reference in the future.
The work presented in this thesis focusses on the development of a transportable atom-interferometry experiment and a compact fibre laser system towards precision measurements of gravitational acceleration. Interference fringes are shown with clouds of cold 87Rb atoms using co-propagating laser beams to drive stimulated Raman transitions. This is demonstrated both inside and outside of laboratory environments for which an integrated and transportable experiment is constructed. Further improvements are presented that enable the generation of clouds containing 1.7 · 108 atoms at a rate of 2.5 Hz and having a temperature of (7 ± 1) µK. This is largely due to the development of a compact laser system based on all-fibre coupled components. It is demonstrated that the laser system designed here can achieve fast frequency sweeps over 1.8 GHz within 2 ms, making it widely applicable in compact atom-interferometry experiments with rubidium atoms. This is shown by creating a Mach–Zehnder type interferometer with counter-propagating Raman beams, thus enabling measurements of gravitational acceleration. Since the laser system uses only two lasers and one fibre amplifier, a significant reduction in size is achieved, as well as a decrease in the total power consumption of the overall experiment by a third to (162 ± 7) W.
This thesis describes the construction of a portable cold atom gravimeter with the aim to be employed in remote locations. Two species of alkali atoms would be eventually used, namely Rubidium-87 and Cesium-133. The advantage of such a system is shorter duty cycle, and shorter dead time. In this thesis we focus on the experimental realization of a Rubidium-87 gravimeter, using the Ramsey-Bord´e interferometry method first described by C. Bord´e, and employed by Kasevich et. al. Approximately 10^8 atoms are laser cooled and trapped to a MOT and further cooled by a optical molasses to a temperature of 12μK. Two counterpropagating Raman beams separated by a frequency matching the ground state hyperfine splitting will be used to excite stimulated Raman transitions to place the atoms into a superposition of the two ground metastable states. This thesis describes in detail the vacuum system and the laser systems built to cool and trap the atoms and to produce the Raman beams to perform the Ramsey sequence. The thesis covers also the relevant theory related to our experiment.