UCLA

© 2017 IOP Publishing Ltd. We present a protocol for rotation measurement via matter-wave Sagnac interferometry using trapped ions. The ion trap based interferometer encloses a large area in a compact apparatus through repeated round-trips in a Sagnac geometry. We show how a uniform magnetic field can be used to close the interferometer over a large dynamic range in rotation speed and measurement bandwidth without contrast loss. Since this technique does not require the ions to be confined in the Lamb-Dicke regime, Doppler laser cooling should be sufficient to reach a sensitivity of S = 1.4 × 10-6rad s-1Hz-1/2.