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International Conference on Ocean Studies (ICOS)

Generation of a high-flux and collimated rubidium beam source

Xiangxiang Lu, Qianyun Zhao, Chuang Pei, Jian Liu, Jieying Wang, Junxin Wei

Published Oct 3, 2023• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A high-flux and collimated atomic beam source has important application in the fields of high precision rotation measurement and atomic clocks. Starting from the principle of atomic interference measurement, the need of atom interference gyroscope for performance parameters of a rubidium beam source is briefly introduced in this paper. An atomic beam generation method that uses micro-channel stainless arrays with a length-diameter ratio of 100:1 is proposed, which is used to support the parameter design and verification system construction. A preliminary parameter characterization is performed, with a peak atomic flux of$2.1\times 10^{12}\text{atoms}/\mathrm{s}$and a full divergence angle of 16 mrad. The test results agree well with theoretical calculation, and the slight difference results from atom-wall collision. A$\pi/2-\pi/2$Ramsey interferometer with an interval of 200 mm is also constructed and characterized with two phase-coherent Raman beams, which proves good coherence of the atom beam, and thus pave the way to high-sensitivity atom interferometry measurements.

DOI
10.1109/icos60708.2023.10425204

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A high-flux and collimated atomic beam source has important application in the fields of high precision rotation measurement and atomic clocks. Starting from the principle of atomic interference measurement, the need of atom interference gyroscope for performance parameters of a rubidium beam source is briefly introduced in this paper. An atomic beam generation method that uses micro-channel stainless arrays with a length-diameter ratio of 100:1 is proposed, which is used to support the parameter design and verification system construction. A preliminary parameter characterization is performed, with a peak atomic flux of2.1×1012atoms/s2.1\times 10^{12}\text{atoms}/\mathrm{s}2.1×1012atoms/sand a full divergence angle of 16 mrad. The test results agree well with theoretical calculation, and the slight difference results from atom-wall collision. Aπ/2−π/2\pi/2-\pi/2π/2−π/2Ramsey interferometer with an interval of 200 mm is also constructed and characterized with two phase-coherent Raman beams, which proves good coherence of the atom beam, and thus pave the way to high-sensitivity atom interferometry measurements.
The use of atom interferometers in inertial systems holds the promise of improvement of several orders of magnitude in sensitivity over sensors using current technology such as micro-electro-mechanical (MEMS) devices or ring laser gyroscopes (RLGs). This paper describes the construction and characterization of an atomic interferometry system for eventual use in a dual-atom-beam accelerometer/gyroscope sensor. In contrast with current state-of-the-art atomic sensors which use pulsed cold atom sources and pulsed laser beams, the investigated apparatus relies purely on continuous atomic and laser beams. These differences can result in a sensor with reduced complexity, a smaller physical footprint, and reduced power consumption. However, these differences also introduce challenges resulting from laser and atomic beam divergences and from velocity averaging due to both longitudinal and transverse velocity spreads. In this work, we characterize our rubidium-based atom beam system and show that Ramsey-style interference can still be observed. The implications for future research are also outlined and discussed.
We study decoherence in continuously cooled atom interferometers by performing Raman-Ramsey fringe measurements in a continuous beam of 3D-sub-Doppler-cooled rubidium atoms. The atom beam is produced by a two-stage cold atom source that is designed to mitigate the decoherence of atomic interference caused by cooling induced fluorescence. The atom beam source produces a collimated beam of over 109 atoms/s that is cooled by polarization gradient cooling to temperatures as low as 14 µK. We infer the potential performance of this atom beam source in a cold-atom gyroscope and use numerical models of motion in 6 degrees of freedom to study the expected performance on dynamic platforms.
As an important technique for developing high-precision gyroscopes, atom interferometry with continuous atomic beams has exhibited advantages of high short-term sensitivity and dynamic response relative to that with periodically launched atom clouds. This article reanalyzes the characteristics of an atomic beam interferometric gyroscope from perspectives including the continuous operation mode and the modified sensitivity dependence on laser and atomic sources. Specific requirements on certain experimental parameters are explored including the Raman beam diameter, detection beam diameter, atomic flux, laser power, laser phase noise, atomic longitudinal and transverse velocity distributions. The parameter determining strategy is discussed to achieve target sensitivity with controlled conditions such as system volume and operating bandwidth. The results would provide strong support on analytical method and data reference for further improvement of atomic beam interferometric gyroscopes.
SummaryIn this paper we reported our progress toward an atomic beam clock based on a transverse cooled rubidium beam. The atomic beam is generated from an atomic oven and collimated via micro-channel arrays and a two-dimensional optical lattice. After optical pumping, the rubidium beam interacts with two spatially separated Raman beams with a π/2 − π/2 sequence. High contrast Raman-Ramsey fringes are observed by using fluorescence detection. Preliminary result shows that the estimated frequency stability of the atomic clock reaches $2.6 \times {10^{ - 11}}/\sqrt \tau $. The atomic beam clock is proposed as a part of atomic beam inertial navigation unit for field applications.
We present the implementation and characterization of a slow, intense, and collimated rubidium atomic source for atom interferometry. The continuous87Rb cold atomic beam is produced by a new compact two-dimensional magneto-optical trap. And it is based on the 2D+MOT design but a much smaller size and a higher flux compared to our original LVIS system. The on-line detecting system developed over a combination of time-of-flight and fluorescence methods is used to optimize the beam parameters. The dependence of the beam flux on detuning and power are investigated in detail respectively, for cooling and pushing laser. The re-pumping laser power influence is also considered. With aError! Reference source not found.10 G/cm magnetic gradient, 3ΓError! Reference source not found. red detuning from resonance for cooling laser and 5ΓError! Reference source not found. red detuning for pushing laser, the obtained cold atomic beam has a high flux of 4.7×109atoms/s Error! Reference source not found. Error! Reference source not found. It has a narrow longitudinal velocity distribution with mean velocity 10 m/s and full width at half maximum (FWHM)Error! Reference source not found.2 m/sError! Reference source not found. The two-photo stimulated Raman transitions both in Doppler-free and Doppler-sensitive modes are first proceeded, and stable Raman-Ramsey fringes are achieved with twon/2 Error! Reference source not found. Raman pulses.
Bose-Einstein condensates are coherent matter waves, produced by cooling gaseous atomic clouds to ultra-low temperatures. For applications in atom interferometry and precision measurements, Bose-condensed sources present an intriguing alternative to thermal atoms. Although the current sensitivity achievable with interferometers using coherent atoms is not comparable to thermal beam machines (mainly due to the lower flux), there are promising ways to utilise the potential of Bose-condensed sources for atom interferometry. Among those is the low momentum width of Bose-Einstein condensates, which can generally be well controlled and is advantageous for increased interferometric sensitivities by implementing large momentum transfer beam splitters. As part of this thesis, experimental and theoretical investigations are presented to investigate the potential of Bose-Einstein condensates for such applications. We shall present the quantum projection noise limited performance of a Ramsey interferometer operating on the atomic clock transition of a freely expanding cloud of Bose-condensed rubidium 87 atoms. The results include Ramsey fringes of high visibility, not measurably affected by atomic interaction-induced dephasing effects. The achievement and detection of the quantum projection noise limit rely critically on the precision and accuracy of both the imaging setup and the coupling scheme in the interferometric beam splitters. The stabilisation of the beam splitters via an optical Sagnac interferometer is the basis for the quantum projection noise limited performance of the interferometer presented. For an increase of bandwidth and flux in atom interferometric measurements, it is advantageous to use a continuous atomic beam. A truly continuous coherent atom source has not been realised to date, and we present results on a pumping mechanism in this thesis, as a decisive step towards a continuous atom laser. By the investigation of different momentum resonances, we find that the pumping scheme relies on a Raman superradiance-like process. Finally, the thesis demonstrates two interaction measurements in rubidium. The strong mean field interactions due to the high densities in Bose-Einstein condensates are used to probe the potential of a rubidium 87 condensate with an atom laser. The measurement allows a determination of the scattering length between the two atomic states involved. In addition to this two-body scattering scheme, we present a measurement of three-body loss coefficients, extracted from loss curves in rubidium 85 Bose-Einstein condensates. The measurement provides new upper bounds on the three-body loss coefficients at the scattering lengths considered.