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 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, distributed sensing and advanced, coherent, high-speed signal processing as well as advanced inertial sensing applications (gyroscopes, gravity anomaly detectors) and autonomous navigation.
