Abstract

We report the operation of a cold-atom inertial sensor in a joint interrogation scheme, where we simultaneously prepare a cold-atom source and operate an atom interferometer in order to eliminate dead times [1]. This is illustrated in Fig. 1. Dead times and noise aliasing are consequences of the sequential operation which is intrinsic to cold-atom interferometers. Both phenomena have deleterious effects on the performance of these sensors. We show that our continuous operation improves the short-term sensitivity of atom interferometers, by demonstrating a record rotation sensitivity of 100 nrad.s⁻¹√Hz in a cold-atom gyroscope of 11 cm² Sagnac area. We also demonstrate a rotation stability of 1 nrad.s⁻¹ after 10⁴ s of integration, improving previous results by an order of magnitude [2-4]. We expect that the continuous operation will allow cold-atom inertial sensors with long interrogation time to reach their full sensitivity, determined by the quantum noise limit.

© 2017 IEEE