Description
Since the 90's, many laboratories have developed atom interferometers to sense accelerations and rotations [1]. For many applications, small compact devices are desirable, and the atom chip [2] appears to offer a path towards miniaturization. Moreover, performing the interferometry sequence on-chip with trapped atoms decouples the sensitivity of the sensor from its size, allowing in principle, larger interrogation times while shrinking the device's size. It has been shown that accelerations can be sensed from a Ramsey's interferometer by spatially splitting the two states of the atoms during the interrogation time [3]. This can be done by separating the two states, using state selective, near-field microwave gradients from a coplanar waveguide [4,5].
We have recently demonstrated state-selective displacements of a two component thermal cloud using coplanar waveguides. The separation of the internal states is several microns and we have observed interference fringes upon recombination showing that the separation was coherent. We have also studied the fringe contrast as a function of cloud temperature.
[1] Riehle et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 67, 177 (1991)
[2] Reichel et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 83, 3398 (1999)
[3] Dupont-Nivet et al., New J. Phys. 18 113012 (2016)
[4] Ammar et al., Phys. Rev. A, 91:053623 (2015)
[5] Böhi et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 97, 051101 (2010)
Presenter name | WIRTSCHAFTER Benjamin |
---|