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.

国家基础设施系统取决于全球导航卫星系统（GNSS），因此5天的停电将使英国损失50亿英镑。这种对GNSS的经济依赖，例如对于电信，电网，水和物流分布，这意味着我们越来越需要找到可靠且安全的基于地面的替代方案，以实现位置，导航和时机（PNT）应用。量子传感器可以为PNT的经典传感器提供性能的数量级改善，尤其是基于超冷原子的传感器，满足目标需求。这些包括原子钟和量子惯性传感器，分别提供了高度敏感的时间，以及加速和旋转的高度敏感测量，以提供量子的精确导航和时机。这些基于冷原子的技术的实质性是超高的激光系统，是针对挑战噪音的阵列阵列而开发的。例如，在英国国家量子技术中心的前两个阶段中，我们的团队开发了紧凑的，狭窄的线宽可见的可见半导体激光器，用于中性腹膜原子的第一和第二阶段冷却系统，以<200 hz的线路在689 nm的范围内适用于斜角式的hib。伦敦帝国学院的共同投资者正在基于干扰原子的干扰而开发极为稳定的加速度计和陀螺仪。这些用高精度的经典传感器杂交，以提供高度带宽，并以长期准确的精度提供较短的精度。这些混合传感器正在开发中，构成了未来在多个平台上部署的量子惯性导航系统的一部分，例如英国铁路网络；但是，该仪器需要高功率激光器来进行原子干扰，目前必须依靠基于商业供供常规的固态激光技术的大型复杂系统，对易于便携式平台构成了重大挑战。现在，开发一种新颖的紧凑激光解决方案是非常及时的，可以利用我们混合半导体激光技术的独特属性来实现该领域的这些导航系统，以实现低相位噪声，并大大降低大小，体重和复杂性。感官。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；激光动力学的表征，包括强度，频率和相位噪声；开发新颖的主动和被动稳定技术；激光光谱；和冷原子实验设计。该学生还将有机会在帝国的系统中将这些激光器应用于系统，从而有助于展示量子惯性感应的联合实验。