For decades physicists have been utilizing controlled, coherent, laser light within developed laboratory-scale apparatus for probing the properties of atoms. Along the way, a detailed understanding of atomic structure has emerged with the ability to control and manipulate both single atoms or groupings of atoms — the result of which has led to some practical offshoot technologies such as atomic clocks (at the heart of existing communications networks [1] and GPS tracking systems) as well as recent discoveries such as the experimental verification of Bose-Einstein Condensates (BEC).
Sarnoff has collaborated with the atomic-physics community to develop real-world, transportable, and miniaturized opto-atomic systems. These systems include high performance aggressively-miniaturized chip scale atomic clocks as well as transportable inertial sensing systems based on ultracold atom-trapped technology. Sarnoff’s expertise is in the the design and fabrication of precision optoelectronic components, opto-mechanical integration, glass-to-silicon wafer bonding, MEMs-based wafer-scale fabrication of silicon and glass structures, and system thermal/mechanical analysis.
Specifically, Sarnoff has developed technologies including wafer-scale alkali-vapor cells of millimeter to centimeters dimensions, ultra high vacuum miniature atom cell, pure alkali-metal dispensers, low-noise milliwatt power consumption VCSEL pump lasers, integrated thin-film thermal heater and temperature sensors, and integrated lasers systems for atomic cooling. Our miniature yet high-performance clock physics package provides 10-11 frequency stability from a 5 cm3, 20 mW consumption, assembly. Our cold-atom technology recently demonstrated a rack-mount-size magneto-optical trap (MOT) system designed for transportable operation.
This technology will be utilized by government and commercial customers for such applications as maintaining secure communications and navigation in GPS-denied environments [2], distributed sensing and advanced, coherent, high-speed signal processing as well as advanced inertial sensing applications (gyroscopes, gravity anomaly detectors) and autonomous navigation.