En Route on Building an Integrated Optically Levitated Linear Accelerometer

Inertial sensors are crucial in various fields, such as positioning, navigation, and geophysical research. Levitation based inertial sensors provide an ideal platform for measuring accelerations with ultra-high sensitivity and stability. Levitated systems in high vacuum are isolated from environmental noise, thus, exhibiting excellent sensitivity (low noise floor). Due to their simplicity, they promise low drifts of bias and scale factor.

We focus on building a compact and robust optically levitated system with microparticles serving as a high-performance linear accelerometer. The optical trap incorporates two counter-propagating beams allowing more flexibility and stability compared to a single beam optical trap. Here, we present our design of a fully fiberized in-vacuum system. We discuss loading and trapping of microparticles (test masses), detecting their center-of-mass position and deriving first acceleration signals.