Compact, high-stability inertial sensors are fundamental to defense technology. Current micro-electromechanical systems, MEMS-based gyroscopes, however, are not stable enough for use in navigation. The alternate atom inertial sensors are not compact.

Gregory Fuchs, Applied and Engineering Physics, is working in collaboration with researchers at Purdue University and MIT to develop a new type of gyroscope that will combine sensitivity, stability, and compactness.

These new gyroscopes employ a mechanically driven nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center, which is a point defect or color center in diamond and a good insulator. The researchers are combining their expertise in MEMS design and fabrication, NV center and mechanical experimentation, and nuclear spin theory to test and develop the device. Conceptually, the new technology will increase sustained mechanical driving fields and electron spin coherence by more than ten-fold.