| EPSRC Reference: |
EP/R019541/1 |
| Title: |
MCLAREN: Miniaturised Cold Atom Gravimeter for Space Applications |
| Principal Investigator: |
Dholakia, Professor K |
| Other Investigators: |
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| Researcher Co-Investigators: |
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| Project Partners: |
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| Department: |
Physics and Astronomy |
| Organisation: |
University of St Andrews |
| Scheme: |
Technology Programme |
| Starts: |
01 October 2017 |
Ends: |
31 March 2019 |
Value (£): |
204,423
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| EPSRC Research Topic Classifications: |
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| EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications: |
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| Related Grants: |
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| Panel History: |
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Summary on Grant Application Form |
The overall aim of the present project will be to develop a compact gravimeter demonstrator, test the gravimeters compact
subsystems for space compatibility and establish a development roadmap for space deployment. During the project critical
subsystems will be designed and developed that will address SWaP requirements either during the project, or provide a
clear path to their attainment.
Addressing the limitations of current cold atom sensor designs will not only identify a route to space readiness but
overcome barriers to adoption in the more immediate terrestrial gravimetry markets, and in general identify a route to make
the commercial ambitions of cold atom sensors realisable. This project will output compact and space compatible
subsystems that can form early revenue streams including space compatible drive electronics, signal generators,
miniaturised vacuum systems, fibre networks, optical architectures and wavemeters.
From the specific viewpoint of the University of St Andrews, our part of this project is to exploit the interference of light for a
key aspect of the proposal. The interference of light is an ubiquitous phenomenon due to its wave nature. In particular, light
propagating in a disordered medium undergoes repeated scattering and interference, creating a "grainy" pattern known as
speckle. This is regarded as a randomization process which destroys information contained within the initial beam and is
deleterious to many optical systems. Indeed many engineers study speckle to remove its effect. Intriguingly however there
is recently growing recognition - including key observations by St Andrews - that this complex pattern is rich in useful
information on both the incident laser source and the environment, with startling potential uses. The aim of the St Andrews
team is to use laser speckle and apply it to new forms of measurement and analysis that would benefit the gravimeter
We aim to demonstrate that the speckle patterns can be used to determine the wavelength of the light source. The
advantages of using such speckle patterns are that they are complex, and can therefore embody information in a very
small footprint, offering a departure which can supersede traditional methods for wavelength determination which use one
dimensional gratings and principles of dispersion. Furthermore, this scheme obviates the need for gas cells by using these
speckle patterns to feedback electronically to control and stabilise the output of a laser system. We would stress that very
low noise and locked laser systems are essential to operate and enable numerous cold atom technologies. In particular for
a gravimeter, locking the cooling and Raman lasers at subfemtometer resolution will yield significant advances in accuracy.
Coupling this with a system that is suited to ruggedisation and compactness for space based applications makes all-fibre
speckle based locking methods ideal subsystems for space based applications, and represents a step change for the field.
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Key Findings |
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This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
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Potential use in non-academic contexts |
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This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
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Impacts |
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| Description |
This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk |
| Summary |
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| Date Materialised |
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Sectors submitted by the Researcher |
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This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
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| Project URL: |
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| Further Information: |
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| Organisation Website: |
http://www.st-and.ac.uk |