Related papers: A cold atom pyramidal gravimeter with a single las…
One of the major limitations of atomic gravimeters is represented by the vibration noise of the measurement platform, which cannot be distinguished from the relevant acceleration signal. We demonstrate a new method to perform an atom…
We present a compact heterodyne laser interferometer developed for high-sensitivity displacement sensing applications. This interferometer consists of customized prisms and waveplates assembled as a quasi-monolithic unit to realize a…
We describe the operation of a light pulse interferometer using cold 87Rb atoms in reduced gravity. Using a series of two Raman transitions induced by light pulses, we have obtained Ramsey fringes in the low gravity environment achieved…
We present the design, realization, characterization and testing of an industrial prototype of a laser system, which is based on frequency doubling of telecom lasers and features all key functionalities to drive a cold atom space…
A planar triplet of diffraction gratings is used to transform a single laser beam into a four-beam tetrahedral magneto-optical trap. This `flat' pyramid diffractor geometry is ideal for future microfabrication. We demonstrate the technique…
Accurate measurement of inertial quantities is essential in geophysics, geodesy, fundamental physics and navigation. For instance, inertial navigation systems require stable inertial sensors to compute the position and attitude of the…
We developed an ultra-compact high-resolution imaging system for cold atoms. Its only in-vacuum element is a multimode optical fiber with a diameter of $230\,\mu$m, which simultaneously collects light and guides it out of the vacuum…
External-cavity diode lasers are ubiquitous in atomic physics and a wide variety of other scientific disciplines, due to their excellent affordability, coherence length and versatility. However, for higher power applications, the…
We demonstrate gravity compensation for an ultracold gas of $^{87}$Rb atoms with a time-averaged optical potential. The position of a far-off-resonance beam is temporally modulated with an acousto-optic deflector to efficiently produce a…
We report the optical imaging of a single atom with nanometer resolution using an adaptive optical alignment technique that is applicable to general optical microscopy. By decomposing the image of a single laser-cooled atom, we identify and…
The scope of the paper is to propose different concepts for future space gravity missions using Cold Atom Interferometers (CAI) for measuring the diagonal elements of the gravity gradient tensor, the spacecraft angular velocity and the…
High-precision gyroscopes in space are essential for fundamental physics research and navigation. Due to its potential high precision, the cold atom gyroscope is expected to be the next generation of gyroscopes in space. Here, we report the…
In this work we demonstrate a high sensitivity atomic gradiometer capable of operation in earth-field level environments. We apply a light-pulse sequence at four times the Larmor frequency to achieve gradiometer sensitivity <20…
The Matter-wave laser Interferometric Gravitation Antenna (MIGA) is an underground instrument using cold-atom interferometry to perform precision measurements of gravity gradients and strains. Following its installation at the low noise…
We propose a new method for measurements of gravitational acceleration using a quantum optomechanical system. As a proof-of-concept, we investigate the fundamental sensitivity for a cavity optomechanical system for gravitational…
We demonstrate a simple and compact approach to laser cool and trap atoms based on laser-induced thermal ablation (LITA) of a pure solid granule. A rapid thermalisation of the granule leads to a fast recovery of the ultra-high vacuum…
We report on the experimental demonstration of a horizontal accelerometer based on atom interferometry using counterpropagative Raman transitions between the states $F=1,m_F=\mp1$ and $F=2,m_F=\pm1$ of $^{87}$Rb. Compared to the $F=1,m_F=0…
Atom interferometers are powerful tools for both measurements in fundamental physics and inertial sensing applications. Their performance, however, has been limited by the available interrogation time of freely falling atoms in a…
Atom interferometers have been developed in the last three decades as new powerful tools to investigate gravity. They were used for measuring the gravity acceleration, the gravity gradient, and the gravity-field curvature, for the…
We characterize the performance of a gravimeter and a gravity gradiometer based on the $^{1}$S$_{0}$-$^3$P$_0$ clock transition of strontium atoms. We use this new quantum sensor to measure the gravitational acceleration with a relative…