Exploring surface nanoscale axial photonics resonators for ultrahigh-resolution optical gyroscope applications

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Inertial navigation systems are an essential component of modern aircraft. Gyroscopes, devices that can ascertain their orientation with respect to an inertial reference system, are in turn critical parts of a navigation system. Optical gyroscopes based on the Sagnac effect, which affects light differently depending on whether it is propagating along or counter the rotation, comport the cutting edge in sensitivity. The best developed optical gyroscopes, laser and fibre optics based ones, offer excellent performance at the expense of high cost, large size and weight, as well as low reliability. Thus, they are not suitable to be used in compact devices requiring a navigational system, such as small unmanned aircraft. There are micromechanical gyroscopes that work well enough in devices such as cell phones, however their sensitivity is at least 100-times worse than that of optical gyroscopes due to intrinsic factors.There is a need to find an optical gyroscope that is more compact that standard fibre ones, while sporting comparable sensitivity levels. Passive whispering gallery mode (WGM) optical microresonators give us a straightforward way to harness the Sagnac effect to detect rotations. These resonators, when they can be fabricating with very low losses (or, correspondingly, very high Q factors) have been proposed as a compact alternative to laser and fibre-based gyroscopes. The lower the losses, the smaller the fundamental detection limit of angular rotations becomes. In order to meet and surpass the sensitivity of the standard optical gyroscopes, WGM resonators with Q factors on the order of a few hundred million are necessary. Here, we propose to develop surface nanoscale axial photonics resonators (SNAPRs), with ultra-high Q factors, and to evaluate their performance once integrated into gyroscopes. These resonators will be fabricated from pure glass cylinders using a flame brush processes. The resonators will be characterized using spectroscopy with an evanescently coupled tapered microfiber, and integrated into a test gyroscope platform to evaluate their performance.