Seminar: Maxwell D. Gregoire

December 6, 2024

Levitated Optomechanics at the Air Force Research Laboratory

Maxwell D. Gregoire, Air Force Research Laboratory

3:00 pm, UNM Centennial Engineering Center, Room 1026
Online Guests: Contact Prof. Osiński <osinski@chtm.unm.edu> for a Zoom link

Abstract: Nano- and micro-scale objects levitated in focused laser beams, a.k.a. optical tweezers, have shown great promise as both tools for high-precision sensing as well as exploring the foundations of quantum mechanics and gravity. This talk discusses AFRL’s experiments in using levitated microparticles to achieve high-precision accelerometry for inertial navigation. Two accelerometer concepts will be discussed: an open-loop, off-resonantsensing architecture, and a freefall-based architecture that leverages optical refrigeration to achieve unprecedented accelerometry precision and that could enable quantum superpositions of micron-scale objects with long decoherence times.

Bio: Dr. Maxwell D. Gregoire is a physicist at the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), Space Vehicles Directorate. Hell earned his PhD in physics at the University of Arizona, where he used atom interferometry to make high-accuracy measurements of alkali atom properties. For the last 5 years, he has lead an in-house research group at AFRL and managed acquisition programs developing high-precision inertial sensors using atom interferometry and levitated optomechanics for air and space applications.