Lasers for quantum-enabled position, navigation, and timing technologies

用于量子定位、导航和授时技术的激光器

• 批准号: 2902868
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Strathclyde
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2024 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2902868
• 关键词: Lasers; quantum; enabled; position; navigation

National infrastructure systems are dependent upon the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), such that 5 days of outage would cost the UK >£5bn. This economic reliance on GNSS, e.g. for telecommunications, power grids, water, and logistics distribution, means that we increasingly need to find robust and secure ground-based alternatives for position, navigation, and timing (PNT) applications. Quantum sensors can provide orders of magnitude improvements in performance over classical sensors for PNT, particularly those based on ultra-cold atoms, meeting target requirements. These include atomic clocks and quantum inertial sensors, to provide, respectively, highly sensitive measurements of time, and of acceleration and rotation, for quantum-enabled precision navigation and timing.Essential components of these cold-atom-based technologies are ultra-coherent laser systems, developed for an array of atomic species, each with multiple target transitions that demand challenging, low noise laser performance. For example, within the first two phases of the UK National Quantum Technology Hub for Sensing & Timing our team has developed compact, narrow linewidth visible semiconductor lasers for the first and second stage cooling of neutral strontium atoms, demonstrating systems with <200 Hz linewidth at 689 nm suitable for application in the strontium optical clock set up at the University of Birmingham.For this project we will be establishing a new collaboration with hub co-investigators at Imperial College London who are developing extremely stable accelerometers and gyroscopes based on interferometry of cold rubidium atoms. These are hybridised with high precision classical sensors to deliver combined high bandwidth and shorter precision with long term accuracy. These hybrid sensors are being developed to form part of a future quantum inertial navigation system for deployment on multiple platforms, e.g. the UK rail network; however, the instrument requires high power lasers for the atom interferometry, and currently must rely on a large, complex system based on commercially-supplied conventional solid-state laser technology, imposing significant challenges for easily portable platforms. It is now very timely to develop a novel, compact laser solution to enable the demonstration of these navigation systems in the field, taking advantage of the unique attributes of our hybrid semiconductor laser technology to achieve record low phase noise as well as significant reductions in size, weight and complexity.In this PhD project we will design, develop, and apply novel hybrid laser systems with ultra-low phase and frequency noise, as required for cold-atom-based inertial sensing. This will include, but is not limited to, optical system design; laser cavity engineering, including electronic control; characterisation of laser dynamics including intensity, frequency, and phase noise; development of novel active and passive stabilisation techniques; laser spectroscopy; and cold atom experiment design. The student will also have the opportunity to apply these lasers in the system at Imperial, contributing to joint experiments for demonstration of quantum inertial sensing.

国家基础设施系统依赖于全球导航卫星系统（GNSS），因此5天的中断将使英国损失超过50亿英镑。在电信、电网、供水和物流配送等方面，对GNSS的经济依赖意味着我们越来越需要为定位、导航和定时（PNT）应用找到可靠、安全的地基替代方案。量子传感器可以提供比经典传感器性能提高几个数量级的PNT，特别是那些基于超冷原子的传感器，满足目标要求。这些技术包括原子钟和量子惯性传感器，分别提供高灵敏度的时间、加速度和旋转测量，用于量子精确导航和计时。这些基于冷原子的技术的基本组成部分是超相干激光系统，该系统针对一系列原子物种开发，每个物种都有多个目标跃迁，需要具有挑战性的低噪声激光性能。例如，在英国国家量子技术传感与定时中心的前两个阶段，我们的团队开发了紧凑的窄线宽可见半导体激光器，用于中性锶原子的第一和第二阶段冷却，演示系统，200 Hz线宽，689 nm，适用于伯明翰大学建立的锶光钟。与伦敦帝国理工学院的中心合作研究人员建立了新的合作关系，他们正在开发基于冷铷原子干涉测量法的极其稳定的加速度计和陀螺仪。这些传感器与高精度经典传感器相结合，可提供高带宽和较短精度以及长期精度。这些混合传感器正在开发，以形成未来量子惯性导航系统的一部分，用于部署在多个平台上，例如英国铁路网络;然而，该仪器需要高功率激光器进行原子干涉测量，目前必须依赖于基于商业供应的传统固态激光技术的大型复杂系统，这对便携式平台提出了重大挑战。现在正是开发一种新颖、紧凑的激光器解决方案的时候，利用我们混合半导体激光器技术的独特属性，实现创纪录的低相位噪声，并显著降低尺寸、重量和复杂性，以实现这些导航系统的现场演示。在这个博士项目中，我们将设计、开发和应用具有超低相位和频率噪声的新型混合激光系统，如基于冷原子的惯性感测所需要的。这将包括但不限于光学系统设计;激光腔工程，包括电子控制;激光动力学特性，包括强度，频率和相位噪声;开发新的主动和被动稳定技术;激光光谱学;和冷原子实验设计。学生还将有机会在帝国理工学院的系统中应用这些激光器，为量子惯性传感演示的联合实验做出贡献。