Mr. Nathanial M. Wilson Profile

Nathanial M. Wilson

at Univ of Adelaide

SPIE Involvement:

Author

Publications (2)

Proceedings Article | 8 March 2023 Presentation + Paper

Realizing software-defined quantum sensing: experimental demonstration of software-ruggedized atom interferometry for mobile quantum inertial sensing

J. Saywell, M. Carey, P. Light, S. Szigeti, A. Milne, K. Gill, M. Goh, N. Wilson, P. Everitt, N. Robins, R. Anderson, M. Hush, M. Biercuk

Proceedings Volume 12447, 124470N (2023) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2657269

KEYWORDS: Multiobjective robust optimal control, Quantum interferometry, Interferometers, Quantum sensors, Beam splitters, Quantum sensing

Read Abstract +

Quantum sensors based on cold atoms have enormous potential to unlock new capabilities in GPS-denied navigation, civil engineering, intelligence, and Earth observation. But operating these devices in realistic environments is currently extremely challenging, and for the most part the advantages of choosing a quantum sensor over a conventional alternative are lost in the transition from laboratory to noisy field-based environments. In this work, we demonstrate for the first time in hardware that tailored light pulses, designed and implemented in software using robust control techniques, can substantially mitigate some of the most nefarious effects in a Bragg atom interferometer. We show experimentally that embedding robust control into sensor operation can improve the signal-to-noise ratio of a state-of-the-art Bragg-pulse cold-atom interferometric sensor by a factor of 4× under ideal conditions. In the presence of laser-intensity noise that varies up to 20% from shot-to-shot, commensurate with common platform vibrations, we show experimentally that using the same robust control solutions preserves fringe visibility with minimal degradation while the utility of the primitive Gaussian pulses collapses, delivering an at least 8× improvement in phase-estimation uncertainty compared with primitive pulse schemes. Across all observations, robust control delivers better performance in a noisy environment than the native hardware performance with primitive pulses under approximately ideal conditions. Finally, building on this demonstration we present a validated theoretical concept to extend this performance improvement to compact devices using concatenated sequences of robust pulses designed to enhance the sensor’s scale factor. Time-domain simulations reveal up to 10× performance enhancement in the presence of realistic atomic-cloud effects at 102ℏk momentum separation. These results show for the first time that software-defined quantum sensor operation can deliver useful performance in environmental regimes where primitive operation is impossible, providing a pathway to augment the performance of current and next generation portable cold-atom inertial sensors in real fielded settings.

Proceedings Article | 30 December 2019 Paper

A high-bandwidth atomic magnetometer

Nathanial Wilson, Rujie Li, Christopher Perrella, Philip Light, Russell Anderson, Andre Luiten

Proceedings Volume 11200, 112000M (2019) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2541255

KEYWORDS: Magnetism, Magnetometers, Modulation, Phase measurement, Magneto-optics, Polarization, Rubidium

Read Abstract +

View contact details

UPDATE YOUR PROFILE

Is this your profile? Update it now.

Sign into your SPIE.org account

Don’t have a profile and want one?

Create an account on SPIE.org

Keywords/Phrases

Search In:

Publication Years