Quantum Technology Applications

Optocap Ltd has won two UK Government Quantum Technology funded projects called RAMPART and SLAM.

The RAMPART project will develop a time-of-flight system with a view to becoming a product range for Optocap and our partner PhotonForce with application in the automotive, maritime and space markets. This project addresses the need for enabling technology to access these new markets and key outputs will include (1) packaged 780nm tapered amplifiers with fibre-coupled input & output, (2) an underwater SPAD-assisted time-of-flight measurement system and (3) a demonstrator that will be prove the suitability of the system to end customers.

The SLAM project aims to deliver a MEMS gravimeter packaged in a MEMS vacuum package with an optical fibre to deliver light to generate squeezed photons on the sensor before germanium on silicon single photon avalanche detectors provide readout from a Michelson interferometer and electrical feedthroughs provide readout and control. The project partners at Uni of Glasgow produced the first demonstration of gravity measurements of the Earth tides using a MEMS proof mass fabricated using the same technology as accelerometers in automotive air bags and the gyroscopes in mobile phones but with an improved sensitivity of around a factor of 5000. Whilst this first demonstration was a laboratory based experiment, research since then has produced a shoe box sized portable demonstrator to allow the technology to be field tested. The project will enable a significant reduction in the size, weight and power of the MEMS gravimeter by replacing a 10cmx10cmx10cm 2kg vacuum system with a 2cmx2cmx0.5cm <20g MEMS package whilst improving the sensitivity by a factor of x40 using a squeezed light source.