초록 ▼

The invention is a neutral atom (and/or molecule) matter-wave interferometer (and/or set of interferometers) that can be used as an inertial sensor with a sensitivity exceeding that of conventional mechanical sensors and multiple circuit optical interferometers (including ring lasers) by many powers

The invention is a neutral atom (and/or molecule) matter-wave interferometer (and/or set of interferometers) that can be used as an inertial sensor with a sensitivity exceeding that of conventional mechanical sensors and multiple circuit optical interferometers (including ring lasers) by many powers of ten. An interferometer in which matter-wave propagation beam paths enclose a finite area will sense rotations via the Sagnac effect. One with the paths displaced from each other will sense acceleration plus gravity. The matter-wave energy and mass dependence of the phase shifts that are due to rotation and acceleration are different. Thus a pair of interferometers with different energies and/or masses can perform simultaneous independent measurements of rotation and acceleration. Interferometers with paths that follow a figure-eight pattern yield a gravitational gradiometer. Laser cooling and slowing of a beam of neutral atoms provides a low energy nearly monochromatic source. One form of the invention comprises a sequence of slits and/or diffraction gratings operation in high order. Gratings consist of slits in a solid material or near-resonant standing-wave laser beams. Path curvature due to acceleration and rotation is canceled by magnetic and/or electric field gradients that produce an effective levitation of slow atoms. A feedback system that maintains an interferometer phase null is employed with its error signal yielding the inertial effect signals. Magnetic fields are used for producing matter-wave phase shifts. One form of detector images the Moire pattern formed in the light emitted from the resonance fluorescence of a standing matter-wave fringe pattern and a standing-wave laser beam.

대표청구항 ▼

Apparatus for simultaneously measuring and distinguishing between rotation and acceleration plus gravity, comprising a plurality of neutral particle matter-wave interferometers, each comprising a means for producing neutral particles selected from atoms and molecules, propagation path defining means

Apparatus for simultaneously measuring and distinguishing between rotation and acceleration plus gravity, comprising a plurality of neutral particle matter-wave interferometers, each comprising a means for producing neutral particles selected from atoms and molecules, propagation path defining means which form a plurality of positionally separated paths, along which the particles and their associated matter waves propagate, a region where the quantum-mechanical matter-waves associated with the particles interfere, a means for detecting the interference between the matter waves, and further, in which one of the interferometers propagates neutral particles, further selected from particles with a mass that is different from the particle mass propagating in at least one of the other interferometers, and particles with a kinetic energy that is different from the particle kinetic energy propagating in at least one of the other interferometers.