Atom interferometry with thousand-fold increase in dynamic range

Abstract

The periodicity inherent to any interferometric signal entails a fundamental trade-off between sensitivity and dynamic range of interferometry-based sensors. Here, we develop a methodology for substantially extending the dynamic range of such sensors without compromising their sensitivity, stability, and bandwidth. The scheme is based on simultaneous operation of two nearly identical interferometers, providing a moiré-like period much larger than 2π and benefiting from close-to-maximal sensitivity and from suppression of common-mode noise. The methodology is highly suited to atom interferometers, which offer record sensitivities in measuring gravito-inertial forces but suffer from limited dynamic range. We experimentally demonstrate an atom interferometer with a dynamic-range enhancement of more than an order of magnitude in a single shot and more than three orders of magnitude within a few shots for both static and dynamic signals. This approach can considerably improve the operation of interferometric sensors in challenging, uncertain, or rapidly varying conditions.

Velocity‐modulated atom interferometry with enhanced dynamic range

“…In the method of Yankelev et al to address the limited dynamic range of an accelerometer, an interferometer was operated at two different interrogation times T 1 and T 2 , where the interrogation time is the length of time between two Raman pulses. 12 The dynamic range increase of the sensor is D = (1 − τ ) −1 , with τ = (T 2 /T 1 ) 2 . Thus, in a spatial domain interferometer, a larger dynamic increase is obtained from small changes in velocity.…”

“…10 While each of these challenges can be addressed through appropriate engineering and signal processing, an all-atomic solution to dynamic range limitations is a potential method of simplifying atom interferometer system design and reducing potential error sources. To that end, Avinadav et al 11 and Yankelev et al 12 have developed techniques for composite-fringe interferometry in time-domain cold-atom accelerometers. The principle of operation of composite-fringe interferometry is measurement at multiple scale factors, either simultaneously or in succession.…”

Enhancing the sensitivity of atom-interferometric inertial sensors using robust control

“…By considering vertical accelerations in the ± 100 μg range, our interferometric measurements remain within one fringe of the interferometer for interrogation times of relevance to mobile interferometers (~10 ms). Remaining within one fringe means we can avoid fringe ambiguity without, for example, requiring sensor fusion with a classical co-sensor 48 or implementing schemes to extend the dynamic range 49 .…”

Parametric excitation of a cold atom in an optical polarization-modulated magneto-optical trap

“…A magneto-optical trap is the fundamental tool in laser cooling and trapping research [1,5,6]. These cooled atoms not only make significant contributions to precision measurement fields such as atom gravimeters [7][8][9][10], atom gyroscopes [11,12], and atom inertial sensors [13][14][15][16] but also find wide applications in various areas including nonlinear and nonequilibrium physics [17][18][19][20][21], quantum information and communication [22,23], quantum computing [24][25][26][27][28], quantum simulation [29][30][31], and others.…”