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Optomechanical gyroscope utilizing the Sagnac effect

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United States Patent

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10,458,795
October 29, 2019
View the Complete Patent at the US Patent & Trademark Office
Sagnac Optomechanical Gyroscope
Next-Generation Automotive
An apparatus and a method for detecting rotation based on the Sagnac effect is disclosed. Input light having sufficient power is injected into a circulating optical resonator to thereby excite an optomechanical oscillation of the resonator at an instantaneous mechanical angular frequency. Rotation of the circulating optical resonator causes a change in a frequency of the optomechanical oscillation of the resonator, which in turn causes the instantaneous mechanical angular frequency to change. The optomechanical oscillation produces modulation sidebands in the resonating optical field at the instantaneous mechanical angular frequency and harmonics thereof, which are demodulated from the optical frequency by detection in a photodetector. Differences in the instantaneous mechanical angular frequency induced by rotation are detected by processing the photodetector output signal.
16/100,925
August 10, 2018
1/1;
G01C 19/72 (20060101); G01C 19/66 (20060101);
;356/460
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF GOVERNMENT SUPPORT This invention was made with Government support under Contract No. DE-NA0003525 awarded by the United States Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration. The Government has certain rights in the invention.