A Cold Atomic Beam Interferometer

Abstract

We demonstrate an atom interferometer that uses a laser-cooled continuous beam of ${}^{87}$Rb atoms having velocities of 10--20 m/s. With spatially separated Raman beams to coherently manipulate the atomic wave packets, Mach--Zehnder interference fringes are observed at an interference distance of 2L = 19 mm. The apparatus operates within a small enclosed area of 0.07 mm${}^2$ at a bandwidth of 190 Hz with a deduced sensitivity of $7.8\times 10^{-5}$ rad/s/$\sqrt{Hz}$ for rotations. Using a low-velocity continuous atomic source in an atom interferometer enables high sampling rates and bandwidths without sacrificing sensitivity and compactness, which are important for applications in real dynamic environments.

16 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (7)

• Precision Measurement of the Newtonian Gravitational Constant Using Cold Atoms
• Multi-axis inertial sensing with long-time point source atom interferometry
• Detecting inertial effects with airborne matter-wave interferometry
• 6-axis inertial sensor using cold-atom interferometry
• Combination of Bloch oscillations with a Ramsey-Bordé interferometer : new determination of the fine structure constant
• Operating an atom interferometer beyond its linear range
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• A continuous, sub-Doppler-cooled atomic beam interferometer for inertial sensing
• Closed-Loop Dual-Atom-Interferometer Inertial Sensor with Continuous Cold Atomic Beams
• High-Flux Cold Ytterbium Atomic Beam Source Using Two-Dimensional Laser Cooling with Intercombination Transition
• Analyzing the sensitivity of an atom interferometer with a phase-modulation readout scheme
• Three-dimensional cooling of an atom beam source for high-contrast atom interferometry
• Compact Continuous Cold Atomic Beam from a Single Cell with 3D Cooling and Ultra-low Light Shift