Epitaxial Integration of Vacuum Cavities for Chip-Scale Cold Atom Sensors

Our ability to solve the problems facing our planet today is limited by our ability to detect, measure, and understand those problems. A core part of NASA's mission is deploying sensing platforms on Earth and in space that track planetary conditions, detect extraplanetary signals, and much more. While these missions have successfully pushed our scientific and technological understanding forward, new global problems call for an improvement in the sensors that measure them. Cold atom sensors show promise for improving sensor resolution in space. Lab demonstrations of various cold atom sensors have shown better sensitivity and resolution than current state of the art technology. However, these sensors often have large spatial footprints and power requirements, making them unsuitable for deployment to space. A drastic reduction in size, weight, and power (SWaP) is necessary before cold atom sensors can find widespread application in space. I propose to study the epitaxial growth of vacuum cavities for chip-scale cold atom sensors. Using molecular beam epitaxy, I will investigate the growth conditions for semiconductor vacuum encapsulation and leverage that knowledge to grow vacuum cavities containing alkali atoms for an eventual cold atom sensor. While most of the components required for a chip-scale cold atom sensor have been demonstrated, a micro scale cavity for containing cold atoms has not been shown. If this missing piece is demonstrated, it would enable a whole suite of cold atom sensors that could be directly applied to challenges laid out in the STMD Envisioned Future documents. Potential devices include gravimeters, accelerometers, gyroscopes, and gravity wave detectors.

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