Measuring scale factor of atomic spin gyroscope and closed-loop operation

Abstract

The response of an atomic spin gyroscope to the AC magnetic field shows a dispersion-like signal as the field frequency. When a system rotates, the curve shifts with a unit scale factor. We used natural Xe and enriched 87Rb gas to construct an atomic spin gyroscope, and we experimentally measured its scale factor by calculating the amount of curve-shift when the system rotates. The scale factor in the range of ±360°/Hz was measured to be 0.99 ± 0.008 for Xe-129 and −0.993 ± 0.003 for Xe-131. We also operated the system with close-loop control of AC frequencies to compensate the frequency shift by a rotation sensor. Herein, we introduce our system and its signal processing for an atomic spin gyroscope.