SBIR Phase II: Atom Chips for Cold and Ultracold Matter Applications

SBIR 第二阶段：用于冷和超冷物质应用的原子芯片

• 批准号: 1126099
• 负责人: Evan Salim
• 金额: $ 49.98万
• 依托单位: ColdQuanta, Inc.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-11-01 至 2015-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1126099&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SBIR; Phase; II; Atom; Chips

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project seeks to develop the next generation of atom chips for producing and manipulating ultracold atomic gases (temperatures 1 µK). While atom chips developed in Phase I provided only magnetic control, these new hybrid atom chips will be able to manipulate ultracold matter both magnetically and optically. These chips will be incorporated into atom-chip vacuum cells, allowing optical techniques to be implemented in compact ultracold matter products. In Phase I, we developed silicon/glass wafers for both creating ultrahigh vacuum electrical feedthroughs with near perfect yield as well as in-trap imaging of ultracold matter. In Phase II, we will further develop this technology by incorporating miniature on-chip optical elements as a vehicle for bringing optical potentials (e.g. produced by laser beams) into the vacuum system. Our research plan includes redesigning existing chip layouts to accommodate small-sized optics that will be anodically bonded to silicon regions of the chip. To further enhance functionality, we will pursue both anti-reflection coating of atom chips and redesigns of the connectorization scheme used to bring electrical currents to the chip.The broader impact/commercial potential of this project is to greatly expand the number and variety of experimental techniques that can be implemented with atom-chip vacuum cells. Of key interest here are optical techniques, such as optical lattices, used to trap and coherently control quantum mechanical systems (e.g. Bose-Einstein condensates). An important application of ultracold lattice-trapped atoms is interferometry, which can be used to realize gyroscopes, accelerometers, and gravimeters that are expected to be orders of magnitude more sensitive than current state-of-the-art technologies. Such devices are crucial for navigational positioning systems and satellite communications, and therefore are of great interest to both commercial and defense-oriented markets. Optical trapping is also vital for the next generation of neutral atomic clocks, whose accuracy is now exceeding a phenomenal 1 part in 10^17 (i.e. a loss of 1 second every 3 billion years). Optically trapped atoms are also ideal for implementing quantum information algorithms, and therefore have many applications in the emerging fields of quantum computation and information processing. For basic science, optical lattices have been used for precision measurements of fundamental constants, some of the most stringent tests of the Standard Model of Physics, and groundbreaking studies of many-body physics.

这个小型企业创新研究（SBIR）第二阶段项目旨在开发下一代原子芯片，用于生产和操纵超冷原子气体（温度1 µK）。 虽然第一阶段开发的原子芯片只提供磁性控制，但这些新的混合原子芯片将能够以磁性和光学方式操纵超冷物质。 这些芯片将被集成到原子芯片真空单元中，从而使光学技术能够在紧凑的超冷物质产品中实现。 在第一阶段，我们开发了硅/玻璃晶片，用于以近乎完美的产率创建超真空电馈电，以及超冷物质的阱内成像。 在第二阶段，我们将进一步开发这项技术，将微型片上光学元件作为将光学电位（例如由激光束产生）引入真空系统的工具。 我们的研究计划包括重新设计现有的芯片布局，以适应小尺寸的光学器件，将阳极键合到芯片的硅区域。 为了进一步增强功能，我们将追求原子芯片的抗反射涂层和重新设计用于将电流引入芯片的连接器方案。该项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是大大扩展可以用原子芯片真空电池实现的实验技术的数量和种类。 这里的关键兴趣是光学技术，如光学晶格，用于捕获和相干控制量子力学系统（例如玻色-爱因斯坦凝聚）。 超冷晶格俘获原子的一个重要应用是干涉测量，它可以用来实现陀螺仪，加速度计和重力仪，预计比目前最先进的技术更灵敏。 这些设备对于导航定位系统和卫星通信至关重要，因此对商业和国防市场都有很大的兴趣。 光学捕获对于下一代中性原子钟也是至关重要的，其精度现在超过了惊人的1/10^17（即每30亿年损失1秒）。 光学囚禁原子也是实现量子信息算法的理想选择，因此在量子计算和信息处理的新兴领域有许多应用。 对于基础科学，光学晶格已被用于基本常数的精确测量，物理学标准模型的一些最严格的测试，以及多体物理学的开创性研究。