Guided matter wave inertial sensing in a miniature physics package

Abstract

We describe an ultra-compact (∼10 cm3 physics package) inertial sensor based on atomic matter waves that are guided within an optical lattice during almost the entire interferometer cycle. We demonstrate a large momentum transfer of up to 8 ℏk photon momentum with a combination of Bragg pulses and Bloch oscillations with scalability to larger numbers of photons. Between momentum transfer steps, we maintain the atoms in a co-moving optical lattice waveguide so that the atoms are in free space only during the Bragg pulses. Our guided matter wave approach paves the way for atomic inertial sensing in dynamic environments in which untrapped atoms would otherwise quickly collide with the walls of a miniature chamber.