United States of America As Represented by the Secretary of the Air Force

University of Colorado

Utah State University

Moment Technologies, LLC

Sean Krzyzewski

Svenja Knappe

Brian L Kasch

Maxwell D Gregoire

Yoshio Okada

Charles W Lewandowski

An accelerometer includes a vacuum chamber to receive one or more pairs of laser beams and a nanoparticle. Each laser beam includes an axis and a focus having three dimensions. The nanoparticle is trapped in an oscillating state in a substantially overlapping three-dimensional foci of the one or more pairs of laser beams. A processor calculates an acceleration of the nanoparticle based on changes in position of the oscillating nanoparticle. At least one photodetector identifies spatial coordinates of the oscillating nanoparticle. The at least one photodetector includes a plurality of photodetectors that are aligned to sense interference between light from a first laser beam and light from the first laser beam that is scattered by the oscillating nanoparticle. The one or more pairs of laser beams may be collinear. The one or more pairs of laser beams may be configured to point at each other.

Optically levitated nanoparticle accelerometer

A magnetographic camera may be based on an optically pumped magnetometer (OPM). The magnetographic camera may measure a spatial distribution of magnetic field produced by a sample that may be stationary in time or may dynamically vary with time. The magnetographic camera may include a magnetic field detector housing containing a vapor cell. The magnetographic camera may include a laser light source to illuminate the vapor cell causing a magnetic field image of a sample to be generated. The magnetographic camera may include an optical detector to encode and store the magnetic field image of the sample that is spatially encoded as a distribution of light.

High-resolution magnetographic camera based on optically-pumped magnetometer

According to some aspects of the present disclosure, an atomic clock and methods of forming and/or using an atomic clock are disclosed. In one embodiment, an atomic clock includes: a light source configured to illuminate a resonance vapor cell; a narrowband optical filter disposed between the light source and the resonance vapor cell and arranged such that light emitted from the light source passes through the narrowband optical filter and illuminates the resonance vapor cell. The resonance vapor cell is configured to emit a signal corresponding to a hyperfine transition frequency in response to illumination from the light source, and a filter cell is disposed between the light source and the resonance vapor cell and configured to generate optical pumping. An optical detector is configured to detect the emitted signal corresponding to the hyperfine transition frequency.

Atomic clocks and related methods

A system includes a vacuum chamber to receive a laser beam and a charged nanoparticle. The nanoparticle oscillates at a trapping frequency in a focus of the laser beam. Resonant oscillation of the nanoparticle is driven by a presence of an ambient electric field adjacent to the vacuum chamber. The system also includes a controller to tune the trapping frequency of an oscillating nanoparticle to be in resonance with the ambient electric field causing on-resonant enhancement of the system; a detector to detect positional changes of the oscillating nanoparticle; and a processor to calculate an electromagnetic force of the ambient electric field based on the positional changes of the oscillating nanoparticle.

Growing community of inventors

Albuquerque, NM, United States of America

Sean Krzyzewski