Regular Article

A prototype industrial laser system for cold atom inertial sensing in space^⋆

¹ LNE-SYRTE, Observatoire de Paris, Université PSL, CNRS, Sorbonne Université, 61 avenue de l’Observatoire, 75014 Paris, France
² MUQUANS, Institut d’Optique d’Aquitaine, rue François Mitterrand, 33400 Talence, France

^a e-mail: vincent.menoret@muquans.com

Received: 23 July 2019
Received in final form: 4 October 2019
Published online: 5 December 2019

Abstract

We present the design, realization, characterization and testing of an industrial prototype of a laser system, which is based on frequency doubling of telecom lasers and features all key functionalities to drive a cold atom space gradiometer based on the architecture proposed in [A. Trimeche, B. Battelier, D.Becker, A. Bertoldi, P.Bouyer, C. Braxmaier, E. Charron, R. Corgier, M.Cornelius, K. Douch, arXiv:1903.09828 (2019)]. Testing was performed by implementing the laser system onto a ground based atomic sensor currently under development. The system reaches a Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of 4, corresponding to an operational validation in a controlled environment. The optical architecture of the system can be adapted to other space mission scenarios.