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Inertial navigation systems generally consist of timing, acceleration, and orientation measurement units. Although much progress has been made towards developing primary timing sources such as atomic clocks, acceleration and orientation measurement units often require calibration. Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) gyroscopes, which rely on continuous measurement of the simultaneous Larmor precession of two co-located polarized noble gases, can be configured to have scale factors that depend to first order only on fundamental constants. The noble gases are polarized by spin-exchange collisions with co-located optically pumped alkali-metal atoms. The alkali-metal atoms are also used to detect the phase of precession of the polarized noble gas nuclei. Here we present a version of an NMR gyroscope designed to suppress systematic errors from the alkali-metal atoms. We demonstrate rotation rate angle random walk (ARW) sensitivity of 16μHz/Hz and bias instability of ∼800 nHz.

Ensemble qubits with strong coupling to photons and resilience against single atom loss are promising candidates for building quantum networks. We report on progress towards high fidelity preparation and control of ensemble qubits using Rydberg blockade. Our previous demonstration of ensemble qubit preparation at a fidelity <60% was possibly limited by Rydberg blockade leakage due to uncontrolled short range atom pair separation. We show progress towards ensembles with a blue-detuned 1-D lattice on top of the existing red-detuned dipole trap, which will suppress unwanted Rydberg interactions by imposing constraints on the atomic separation. We study the effect of lattice insertion on the fidelity of ensemble state preparation and Rydberg-mediated gates. Studies of cooperative scattering from a 1D atomic array will also be presented.

Spin-exchange pumped NMR gyros scale well to small volumes due to the gentle 1/L scaling of the fundamental NMR relaxation rates with cell size L and their use of imbedded ultra sensitive atomic magnetometers that directly measure the quantum-enhanced field due to the precessing nuclei. This talk will give an overview of the present technology and describe new approaches that promise improved long-term stability.