Matterwave Interferometry with Ions

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。离子干涉仪将是一种全新类型的设备，利用物质的量子波性质以前所未有的灵敏度探测电磁场。在离子干涉仪中，激光冷却的原子气体将与一对激光束相互作用，这对激光束将从每个原子上剥离一个电子，以产生带正电的离子。然后，离子将通过一组三个精确调谐的激光束，这些激光束将分裂每个离子的量子波，沿着不同的路径发送两部分波，然后将量子波的两半放在一起，使它们相互干扰。通过测量所产生的干扰，然后可以确定设备中存在的场。离子干涉仪在功能上将类似于光学干涉仪，用于航空器惯性导航、化学光谱特征检测以及寻找碰撞黑洞产生的重力波等应用。然而，离子的静电荷将使离子干涉仪对光学干涉仪无法检测的电场和磁场敏感。这种新的方法应该导致一种设备，可以检测静电场的数千倍小，数千倍的精度比以前的任何设备。这种精确的场传感器的应用是众多的。例如，这些设备将被用来寻找偏离目前公认的电磁学理论的偏差，并寻找光子可能拥有的少量先前未检测到的静止质量。超导体和半导体等电子材料以及纳米结构的特性将通过使用离子感应微小电流并测量固体材料外部产生的电场来研究。此外，在实现第一个离子干涉仪的过程中开发的技术将在其他领域产生影响。例如，慢离子束技术可以提高半导体芯片制造中离子注入的精度，而本项目开发的激光冷却和光电离技术可以提高原子钟的精度。由于这项开创性的工作将在一个以优秀的本科科学教育而闻名的机构进行，并强调本科生参与研究，因此该项目也将有助于培养新一代科学家。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).Ion interferometers will be a completely new type of device, utilizing the quantum-wave nature of matter to detect electromagnetic fields with unprecedented sensitivity. In an ion interferometer a laser-cooled gas of atoms will interact with a pair of laser beams which will strip an electron off of each atom to create positively charged ions. The ions will then pass through a set of three precisely tuned laser beams that will split the quantum wave of each ion, send both pieces of the wave along a different path, and then bring the two halves of the quantum wave together and cause them to interfere with each other. By measuring the resulting interference, the fields present in the apparatus can then be determined. Ion interferometers will be functionally similar to the optical interferometers used in applications such as inertial navigation of aircraft, the detection of chemical spectral signatures, and the search for gravity waves generated by colliding black holes. However, the electrostatic charge of the ions will make ion interferometers sensitive to electric and magnetic fields which optical interferometers cannot detect. This new approach should result in a device that can detect electrostatic fields thousands of times smaller and with thousands of times finer precision than any previous device.The applications of such a precise field sensor are numerous. For example, these devices will be used to search for deviations from the currently accepted theories of electromagnetism and to search for a tiny amount of previously undetected rest mass that photons of light might possess. Properties of electronic materials such as superconductors and semiconductors, as well as nano-structures will be studied by using the ions to induce minute electric currents and to measure the resulting fields generated just outside of the solid material. In addition, the technology developed in the process of realizing the first ion interferometer will have impact in other fields. For example, the slow ion beam techniques may improve the precision of ion implantation in the manufacture of semiconductor chips, and laser cooling and photo-ionization techniques developed in this project could improve the accuracy of atomic clocks. Because this pioneering work will be carried out at an institution with a reputation for excellent undergraduate science education and with an emphasis on undergraduate involvement in research, this project will also help train a new generation of scientists.