Guided Cold Atom Inertial Sensor Platforms with Membrane Integrated Photonics and Nanofibers

Guided cold atom inertial sensor platforms with evanescent fields can be widely used for atomic positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) sensors due to its low SWaP condition, scalability and modularity. In particular, guided atom interferometers enable to operate accelerometers and gyroscopes in dynamic environments. To achieve an evanescent-field optical dipole trap (EF-ODT) and guided cold atom inertial sensors, membrane integrated photonics have been developed for efficient heat dissipation at the suspended waveguide and sufficient atom loading around the waveguide. Here we demonstrate a suspended waveguide with a large membrane and a center opening for atom loading and validate low-loss and centimeter-long waveguides to mitigate heat load of the EF-ODT in vacuum. We also report the demonstration of a MOT within a sub-millimeter membrane hole and a sub-millimeter gap between two silicon needle structure, and these novel membrane and hybrid-needle structures can handle the heat load issue in vacuum. In addition, we study atomic coherence, e.g., Rabi and Ramsey measurements, of 1-D evanescently guided atoms by using a nanofiber platform.