Advanced Transportable Inertial Measurement Devices

Many applications such as, inertial navigation, resource detection, civil engineering, among others, require transportable inertial measurement devices capable of observing changes in the gravitational acceleration with both high sensitivity and long-term stability. Optomechanical sensors comprised of monolithic fused silica utilize micro-optical cavities to obtain highly sensitive measurements within a small form factor. These sensors allow for field transportable measurements of acceleration with sensitivities on the order of 10^-9 ms^-2/√Hz. Paralleling the developments in optomechanical sensors, modern transportable atom interferometers offer an ideal long-term stable acceleration reference. By combining an optomechanical sensor with an atom interferometer into a hybrid sensor, it is possible to exploit both the high sensitivity and measurement bandwidth of the optomechanical sensors and long term stability of atom interferometers. Proof of principle measurements of a combined hybrid atom interferometer optomechanical sensor have demonstrated improvements to the short term stability of an atom interferometer by a factor of 18, and allow for operation in inertially noisy environments. We will present recent developments in optomechanical sensing capabilities, as well as plans for the construction of a transportable hybrid optomechanical atom-interferometric system.