High-Performance Silicon Photonic Single-Sideband Modulators for Cold Atom Interferometry

Abstract

The most complicated and challenging system within a light-pulse atom interferometer (LPAI) is the laser system, which controls the frequencies and intensities of multiple laser beams over time to configure quantum gravity and inertial sensors. The main function of an LPAI laser system is to perform cold-atom generation, state-preparation, state-selective detection and to generate coherent two-photon process for the light-pulse sequence. Substantial miniaturization and ruggedization of the laser system can be achieved by bringing most key functions of the laser system onto photonic integrated circuit (PIC). We demonstrate a high-performance silicon photonic suppressed-carrier single-sideband (SC-SSB) modulator at 1560 nm, which can dynamically frequency shift within the LPAI. With independent RF-channel control, we study the imbalances in both the optical and RF phases/amplitudes to reach 30 dB carrier-suppression, unprecedented 47.8 dB sideband-suppression at peak conversion-efficiency: -6.846 dB (20.7 %). Using a silicon photonic SSB-modulator, we demonstrate cold-atom generation, state-selective detection, and atom interferometer fringes to estimate gravitational acceleration, $g\approx 9.77\pm 0.01m/{\mathrm{s}}^2$, in a Rubidium (${}^{87}$Rb) atom system.

25 pages, 14 figures

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Cited by in corpus (3)

• On-chip 7 GHz acousto-optic modulators for visible wavelengths
• Digital stabilization of an IQ modulator in the carrier suppressed single side-band (CS-SSB) mode for atom interferometry
• Spectrally-pure optical serrodyne modulation for continuously-tunable laser offset locking