Integrating planar photonics for multi-beam generation and atomic clock packaging on chip

Chad Ropp; Wenqi Zhu; Alexander Yulaev; Daron Westly; Gregory Simelgor; Akash Rakholia; William Lunden; Dan Sheredy; Martin M Boyd; Scott Papp; Amit Agrawal; Vladimir Aksyuk

doi:10.1038/s41377-023-01081-x

Integrating planar photonics for multi-beam generation and atomic clock packaging on chip

Light Sci Appl. 2023 Apr 3;12(1):83. doi: 10.1038/s41377-023-01081-x.

Authors

Chad Ropp^{1

2}, Wenqi Zhu¹, Alexander Yulaev^{1

2}, Daron Westly¹, Gregory Simelgor¹, Akash Rakholia³, William Lunden³, Dan Sheredy³, Martin M Boyd³, Scott Papp⁴, Amit Agrawal¹, Vladimir Aksyuk⁵

Affiliations

¹ Physical Measurement Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD, 20899, USA.
² Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 20742, USA.
³ Vector Atomic, Inc., Pleasanton, CA, 94588, USA.
⁴ Physical Measurement Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Boulder, CO, 80305, USA.
⁵ Physical Measurement Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD, 20899, USA. vladimir.aksyuk@nist.gov.

Abstract

The commercialization of atomic technologies requires replacing laboratory-scale laser setups with compact and manufacturable optical platforms. Complex arrangements of free-space beams can be generated on chip through a combination of integrated photonics and metasurface optics. In this work, we combine these two technologies using flip-chip bonding and demonstrate an integrated optical architecture for realizing a compact strontium atomic clock. Our planar design includes twelve beams in two co-aligned magneto-optical traps. These beams are directed above the chip to intersect at a central location with diameters as large as 1 cm. Our design also includes two co-propagating beams at lattice and clock wavelengths. These beams emit collinearly and vertically to probe the center of the magneto-optical trap, where they will have diameters of ≈100 µm. With these devices we demonstrate that our integrated photonic platform is scalable to an arbitrary number of beams, each with different wavelengths, geometries, and polarizations.