Sensitive Atomic Accelerometers Leveraging Efficient BEC Sources

Wui Seng Leong^1,2,3*, Mingjie Xin¹, Zilong Chen¹, Rainer Dumke¹, Shau-Yu Lan^1,2,3

¹School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore
²Department of Physics, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
³Center for Quantum Science and Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan

* Presenter:Wui Seng Leong, email:leongwuiseng@phys.ntu.edu.tw

Atomic sensors harnessing the exceptional coherence of quantum gases as matter waves are poised to enable breakthroughs in testing fundamental physics while advancing high-precision inertial and field sensing. However, the time and complexity in preparing low dispersive matter wave source challenges the performance and versatility of the sensors. Here, we take advantage of recent highly efficient production of quantum gases and demonstrate an optically guided accelerometer using BEC. The BEC with 2×10⁻⁶ atoms are prepared in 30 ms after the conventional magneto-optical trap stage and show an effective temperature of 10 nK. Using double diffraction Mach-Zehnder interferometer geometry, we show a competitive sensitivity of 5×10⁻⁶ m/s² per root Hz. Our demonstration could scale up atom number for highly sensitive interferometers.

Keywords: Quantum gas, Fast cooling, Atom interferometer