A portable magneto-optical trap with prospects for atom interferometry in civil engineering

Abstract

The high precision and scalable technology offered by atom interferometry has the opportunity to profoundly affect gravity surveys, enabling the detection of features of either smaller size or greater depth. While such systems are already starting to enter into the commercial market, significant reductions are required in order to reach the size, weight and power of conventional devices. In this article, the potential for atom interferometry based gravimetry is assessed, suggesting that the key opportunity resides within the development of gravity gradiometry sensors to enable drastic improvements in measurement time. To push forward in realizing more compact systems, techniques have been pursued to realize a highly portable magneto-optical trap system, which represents the core package of an atom interferometry system. This can create clouds of 107 atoms within a system package of 20 l and 10 kg, consuming 80 W of power.This article is part of the themed issue ‘Quantum technology for the 21st century’.

Taking atom interferometric quantum sensors from the laboratory to real-world applications

“…The portability of atomic sensors imposes SWAP constraints and commercial use also involves cost issues. Strategies to overcome these problems and limitations include 3D printing [123][124][125] to minimize the use of mechanical mounts, robust and compact laser systems [126][127][128][129] to decrease the number of lasers needed in atom interferometers and compact magneto-optical traps 103,117,[126][127][128][129][130][131][132][133] operating with just a single input beam to reduce the space required by optical interfaces. However, a genuine hand-held product will only become available once an integration similar to micromechanical devices is achieved.…”

“…The device has been demonstrated outdoors in temperature conditions ranging from 0 o C to 30 o C, on road surfaces around construction sites. The aim for this device is to realize a ten-fold reduction in measurement times compared to classical geophysics equipment 117 .…”

A single-laser alternating-frequency magneto-optical trap

“…Alternatively, a feedback loop based on the fluorescence signal strength alone could be implemented as demonstrated in Ref. 26.…”

Using broadband seismic networks to optimize microgravity survey strategy in the United Kingdom

“…; Hinton et al . ), with commercially available mobile laboratory instruments now available (Muquans ) and it is likely that a field capable instrument will follow by 2019 as part of the REVEAL project.…”

“…The only way to decrease it is by using low-temperature stabilized electronics or to move from mechanical mass and spring gravimeters to superconducting (Goodkind 1999) or atom interferometry sensors (Snadden et al 1998;Peters, Chung and Chu 1999;Metje et al 2011), but current designs are not yet developed for field survey conditions. Nevertheless, significant developments of cold atom gravimeters have occurred in recent years (Bidel et al 2013;Gillot et al 2016;Hinton et al 2017), with commercially available mobile laboratory instruments now available (Muquans 2017) and it is likely that a field capable instrument will follow by 2019 as part of the RE-VEAL 1 project.…”