Abstract

The technology of cold atom fountains and matter-wave interferometry has enabled many very sensitive measurement methods for fundamental physics and metrology [1], but it has also found applications in fields like quantum computation [2]. We present an atomic gyroscope for the precise measurement of rotations based on optical Raman transitions for the coherent beam splitting process. Two interferometers with overlapping counter propagating atomic trajectories are used to distinguish between rotation and acceleration.

© 2011 Optical Society of America