UV/Visible Alpha-Barium Borate Acousto-Optic Modulators for Atomic Interferometry Applications

Research team at Brimrose Technology Corporation is proposing to systematically develop a novel high-speed and high efficiency acousto-optic modulators (AOM) using -BBO single crystals, with no moving parts, where the technology is appropriate for Atomic Quantum Sensing applications, with specifications and capabilities well beyond that of any other current material or devices. Acousto-optic modulators (AOMs) allow rapid, inertia-free focusing and scanning of an optical beam. Dynamic spatial control of atoms using acousto-optics or spatial light modulators has been of interest recent year. Quantum computing involves arrays of trapped atoms or ions or molecules that require optical addressing in order to program initial states, implement single qubit manipulations, or perform entangling 2-qubit gates. However, optical addressing is technologically challenging since the transition energy from the ground state is deep into the UV for most common atoms such as Rb, K, Cs, Yb, and Sr, and most optical beam manipulation devices are not transparent in the UV requiring the development of a new generation of efficient and high-performance UV modulators and deflectors. Currently available acousto-optic modulator materials such as TeO2, LiNbO3, GaP, and PbMO3 are not transparent into deep UV region. Although a few UV devices are commercially made using fused silica, KH2PO4 (KDP) and NH4H2PO4 (ADP), these devices exhibit low diffraction efficiencies due to low AO figures of merit in the material. alpha-BBO has the greatest potential of combining the best properties of all existing materials into a single crystal. With regard to the AOM development, our overall commercialization strategy will be to use the Phase II funding to develop a prototype product and then use retained earnings to develop this product to the point where it is ready to be introduced into the market.

Ultracold atomic physics has the potential to make many discoveries in gravity science, cosmology and quantum simulations particles and forces. NASA’s advanced quantum sensing technologies in cold atom laboratories have led to a new type of precision inertial force and gravity sensors based on atom interferometry which involve arrays of trapped atoms or ions that can be addressed optically in order to program initial quantum states. Dynamic spatial control of atoms using acousto-optics or spatial light modulators has been of interest in recent years. Acousto-optic modulators (AOMs) allow rapid, inertia-free focusing and scanning of an optical beam which can be used atom trapping. However, the optical addressing is technologically challenging since the transition energy from the ground state is deep into the UV for most common atoms such as Rb, K, Cs, Yb, and Sr, and most optical beam manipulation devices are not transparent in the UV requiring the development of a new generation of efficient and high-performance UV modulators and deflectors. Quantum sensing is emerging as a new endeavor with NASA, startup companies and many University research groups performing experiments in quantum optics and atom trapping for a variety of fundamental physics studies as well as preliminary system demonstrations. If the trapped ion array quantum computer emerges as the winning approach to quantum sensing, this subfield will flourish, and the new UV AO sensor technology based on BBO that will be developed in this program will be poised to be a critical enabling technology. In addition, BBO may prove to become a revolutionary new acousto-optic material with beneficial applications throughout the UV, visible, and IR spectral range. BBO possesses a combination of advantageous features that until now have only been available in different AO materials. BBO is widely transparent and also has orders of magnitude higher figure of merit. BBO is uniaxial allowing efficient and broadband anisotropic diffraction and is not optically active like TeO2 thereby allowing simple polarization filtering for increased contrast ratio as high as 80dB. The BBO AO devices proposed here would complement Brimose’s comprehensive line of available components providing a low-risk commercialization of the specialized Quantum sensing technology developed in this SBIR.

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