Enhanced atomic co-magnetometry for inertial sensing

该项目旨在推动原子自旋陀螺仪（ASGs）领域向商业导航级设备的发展。ASGs利用了热蒸汽中原子自旋的拉莫尔进动，热蒸汽中含有碱金属原子和惰性气体原子的混合物。除了潜在的导航级性能外，ASG还受益于简单，坚固的硬件，这是小型化的理想选择。该项目的活动旨在开发和测试新技术，这些技术将导致性能与最先进的实验室系统相当或更好，但具有简化，不那么复杂的架构，更适合实验室外的应用，以及针对惯性导航的ASG商业化。一方面，这将填补目前基于实验室的ASGs和第一个工业原型之间的性能差距，另一方面，它将更接近商业化的平台仍然充满了未开发的（量子）潜力，它有能力超越现有的技术（如光学和MEMs陀螺仪）在集成水平和绝对性能方面的性能。我们提出的技术是基于对原子气体稳定空间扩散模式的综合利用，以及在我们的小组内开发的用于微分和自调节操作的方法。随着陀螺短期灵敏度、长期稳定性和自调节工作方式的显著提高，我们将专门针对实现鲁棒陀螺仪，兼容仪器小型化和在恶劣环境条件下的实验室外应用。这项技术的发展理想地补充了英国与商业伙伴合作开发原子自旋系统仪器的几个正在进行的努力。该项目的结果也将引起更广泛的学术界和工业界在原子磁强计和量子科学方面的兴趣。

This project aims at advancing the field of Atomic Spin Gyroscopes (ASGs) towards the development of a commercial navigation grade device. ASGs exploit the Larmor precession of atomic spins in thermal vapours that contain a mixture of alkali-metal and noble gas atoms. Besides the potential for navigation grade performance, ASG benefit from a simple, robust hardware, which is ideal for miniaturisation. The activities within this project aim at developing and testing new techniques which will lead to performances comparable to or better than the best state-of-the-art laboratory-based systems, but with a simplified, less sophisticated architecture, more suitable for the out-of-the-lab application, and commercialization of ASG targeting inertial navigation. On one side this will fill the current gap in the performances between laboratory based ASGs and the first industrial prototypes, on the other side it will bring closer to commercialization a platform still full of unexplored (quantum) potential, which has the capability to surpass existent technology (such as optical and MEMs gyros) both in terms of performance over integration level and of absolute performance. The techniques we propose are based on the combined exploitation of stable spatial diffusion modes of the atomic gases, and methodologies developed, within our groups, for differential and self-adjusting operation. With a significant improvement of the short-term gyro sensitivity, long-term stability, and self-adjusting operation modes, we will specifically target the realization of robust gyros, compatible with apparatus miniaturization, and out-of-the-lab application in adverse environmental conditions. This technology development ideally complements several ongoing UK efforts for the development of the atomic spin system instrumentation, performed in collaboration with commercial partners. The results of the project will be also of interest for the wider academic and industrial community working in atomic magnetometry, and quantum science.