Integrated Opto-Electronic Components for Multiaxis Inertial Measurement Units

ABSTRACT:Vescent Photonics proposes to develop a laser system complete with drive electronics to support the superluminal IMU development at Northwestern University and Digital Optics Technology by Selim Shahriar. The technology will also be applicable to other research programs such as DARPA IMPACT, DARPA CSCAN, DARPA STOIC, AFRL CSTAR, and other future atomic clock development programs. Vescent has partnered with Selim Shahriar to assist in the definition of the laser requirements and Draper Laboratories to develop an FPGA circuit for laser locking and temperature control.BENEFIT:Diode laser systems and low SWaP electronics capable of reliable, agile, atomic locking will find uses in cold-atom spectroscopic sensors such as atom interferometers, gravimeters, magnetometers, atom clocks, focused ion beam sources and quantum computers. New inertial navigation sensors and atomic clocks are needed for GPS design environments. More accurate and lower power atomic clocks are needed for network synchronization for wireless networks and SONET. Cold-atom technology is also being used for the development of high-brightness ion beams useful for focused ion beams for semiconductor fabrication and electron beams for electron microscopy.