Optical gyroscopes the size of a grain of rice and with higher precision

Engineers have designed the world’s smallest version of an optical gyroscope, a device that relies on light rather than moving parts, in a feat that could lead to models with much higher precision than comparable mechanical devices. It is 500 times smaller than regular gyroscopes and is about the size of a grain of rice.

Above – Rice grains dwarf a gyroscope of a type that uses light rather than mechanical components. Credit: Pooya Vahidi

Inside a conventional optical gyroscope, a spooled-up optical fiber carries pulses of laser light, some running clockwise and some running anticlockwise. The device measures the rate of rotation by detecting tiny shifts in the timing of the pulses’ arrival at a sensor. Optical gyros have been difficult to scale down because, as they shrink, the signal from their sensors weakens and is then drowned in noise created in part by scattered light.

Parham Khial and his colleagues at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena designed a low-noise, photonic gyroscope. The researchers etched light-guiding channels onto a 2-square-millimeter silicon chip to guide the light traveling in each direction around a separate circle, so that scattered light would not confuse the device’s sensors. The new design also periodically reverses the light’s direction, helping to cancel out much of the noise.

Optical gyroscopes measure the rate of rotation by exploiting a relativistic phenomenon known as the Sagnac effect. Such gyroscopes are great candidates for miniaturization onto nanophotonic platforms. However, the signal-to-noise ratio of optical gyroscopes is generally limited by thermal fluctuations, component drift and fabrication mismatch. Due to the comparatively weaker signal strength at the microscale, integrated nanophotonic optical gyroscopes have not been realized so far. Here, they demonstrate an all-integrated nanophotonic optical gyroscope by exploiting the reciprocity of passive optical networks to significantly reduce thermal fluctuations and mismatch. The proof-of-concept device is capable of detecting phase shifts 30 times smaller than state-of-the-art miniature fiber-optic gyroscopes, despite being 500 times smaller in size. The approach is capable of enhancing the performance of optical gyroscopes by one to two orders of magnitude.

Nature 0-

70 thoughts on “Optical gyroscopes the size of a grain of rice and with higher precision”

  1. This is a news aggregation site. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s not a newspaper, it’s not a scientific publication. It’s basically a glorified RSS feed. Bottom line is, nobody cares if it’s not cited properly, other than yourself, and maybe a handful of others.

  2. This is a news aggregation site. Nothing more nothing less. It’s not a newspaper it’s not a scientific publication. It’s basically a glorified RSS feed. Bottom line is nobody cares if it’s not cited properly other than yourself and maybe a handful of others.

  3. No. I will not imagine he is citing people correctly, because he isn’t. And if you had read my post, you would realize you are wrong. He took words from two (2) separate sources, only one (1) of which is linked. Why are you defending this?

  4. No. I will not imagine he is citing people correctly because he isn’t. And if you had read my post you would realize you are wrong. He took words from two (2) separate sources only one (1) of which is linked. Why are you defending this?

  5. Yes, writing is a skill. That’s why this is not better. It’s plagiarism and it’s theft of something you concede is valuable due to the difficulty of its production. Why are you defending this?

  6. Yes writing is a skill. That’s why this is not better. It’s plagiarism and it’s theft of something you concede is valuable due to the difficulty of its production.Why are you defending this?

  7. Writing is skill and it takes a lot of time to do properly. I know I don’t have this skill. 😉 Science writing is even harder. Brian used to write a lot more in the past and it wasn’t exactly awarding winning quality. Maybe what he does now is actually better in that more professional people spent a lot more time doing the writing.

  8. Writing is skill and it takes a lot of time to do properly. I know I don’t have this skill. 😉 Science writing is even harder. Brian used to write a lot more in the past and it wasn’t exactly awarding winning quality. Maybe what he does now is actually better in that more professional people spent a lot more time doing the writing.

  9. Just imagine quotation marks around the entire article. 90% of the content on this site is quotes from the linked pages. It was never claimed to be original, and the links are there.

  10. Just imagine quotation marks around the entire article. 90{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} of the content on this site is quotes from the linked pages. It was never claimed to be original and the links are there.

  11. Once again, just blatant plagiarism. The final paragraph is lifted entirely from the linked Nature abstract. The first paragraphs are lifted entirely from an unlinked public Nature press release. You are an unrepentant thief, Brian Wang.

  12. Once again just blatant plagiarism. The final paragraph is lifted entirely from the linked Nature abstract. The first paragraphs are lifted entirely from an unlinked public Nature press release. You are an unrepentant thief Brian Wang.

  13. Now that you said it, I can see where you’re coming from. Granted, English isn’t my first language, either, but when I first read that phrase I didn’t think that the “more precise” referred to the grain of rice, but to an elided expression like, for example, “than before” or something to that effect.

  14. Now that you said it I can see where you’re coming from. Granted English isn’t my first language either but when I first read that phrase I didn’t think that the more precise”” referred to the grain of rice”” but to an elided expression like for example”” “”””than before”””” or something to that effect.”””

  15. That’s because a rotating frame is an *accelerated* frame. You can’t do proper relativistic calculations in an accelerated frame.

  16. That’s because a rotating frame is an *accelerated* frame. You can’t do proper relativistic calculations in an accelerated frame.

  17. The sagnac effect “relativistic” ? Very funny. What the Sagnac says is that the velocity of light in a rotating frame is NOT the same depending of orientation — and without that it couldn’t be used as a gyroscope.

  18. The sagnac effect relativistic”” ? Very funny. What the Sagnac says is that the velocity of light in a rotating frame is NOT the same depending of orientation — and without that it couldn’t be used as a gyroscope.”””

  19. It’s not hard to have higher precision than a grain of rice. Asking seriously: Is English Brian’s second language? He doesn’t write like somebody with a feel for it.

  20. It’s not hard to have higher precision than a grain of rice. Asking seriously: Is English Brian’s second language? He doesn’t write like somebody with a feel for it.

  21. This is a news aggregation site. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s not a newspaper, it’s not a scientific publication. It’s basically a glorified RSS feed. Bottom line is, nobody cares if it’s not cited properly, other than yourself, and maybe a handful of others.

  22. This is a news aggregation site. Nothing more nothing less. It’s not a newspaper it’s not a scientific publication. It’s basically a glorified RSS feed. Bottom line is nobody cares if it’s not cited properly other than yourself and maybe a handful of others.

  23. No. I will not imagine he is citing people correctly, because he isn’t. And if you had read my post, you would realize you are wrong. He took words from two (2) separate sources, only one (1) of which is linked. Why are you defending this?

  24. No. I will not imagine he is citing people correctly because he isn’t. And if you had read my post you would realize you are wrong. He took words from two (2) separate sources only one (1) of which is linked. Why are you defending this?

  25. Yes, writing is a skill. That’s why this is not better. It’s plagiarism and it’s theft of something you concede is valuable due to the difficulty of its production. Why are you defending this?

  26. Yes writing is a skill. That’s why this is not better. It’s plagiarism and it’s theft of something you concede is valuable due to the difficulty of its production.Why are you defending this?

  27. Writing is skill and it takes a lot of time to do properly. I know I don’t have this skill. 😉 Science writing is even harder. Brian used to write a lot more in the past and it wasn’t exactly awarding winning quality. Maybe what he does now is actually better in that more professional people spent a lot more time doing the writing.

  28. Writing is skill and it takes a lot of time to do properly. I know I don’t have this skill. 😉 Science writing is even harder. Brian used to write a lot more in the past and it wasn’t exactly awarding winning quality. Maybe what he does now is actually better in that more professional people spent a lot more time doing the writing.

  29. Just imagine quotation marks around the entire article. 90% of the content on this site is quotes from the linked pages. It was never claimed to be original, and the links are there.

  30. Just imagine quotation marks around the entire article. 90{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} of the content on this site is quotes from the linked pages. It was never claimed to be original and the links are there.

  31. Once again, just blatant plagiarism. The final paragraph is lifted entirely from the linked Nature abstract. The first paragraphs are lifted entirely from an unlinked public Nature press release. You are an unrepentant thief, Brian Wang.

  32. Once again just blatant plagiarism. The final paragraph is lifted entirely from the linked Nature abstract. The first paragraphs are lifted entirely from an unlinked public Nature press release. You are an unrepentant thief Brian Wang.

  33. This is a news aggregation site. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s not a newspaper, it’s not a scientific publication. It’s basically a glorified RSS feed. Bottom line is, nobody cares if it’s not cited properly, other than yourself, and maybe a handful of others.

  34. Now that you said it, I can see where you’re coming from. Granted, English isn’t my first language, either, but when I first read that phrase I didn’t think that the “more precise” referred to the grain of rice, but to an elided expression like, for example, “than before” or something to that effect.

  35. Now that you said it I can see where you’re coming from. Granted English isn’t my first language either but when I first read that phrase I didn’t think that the more precise”” referred to the grain of rice”” but to an elided expression like for example”” “”””than before”””” or something to that effect.”””

  36. That’s because a rotating frame is an *accelerated* frame. You can’t do proper relativistic calculations in an accelerated frame.

  37. That’s because a rotating frame is an *accelerated* frame. You can’t do proper relativistic calculations in an accelerated frame.

  38. The sagnac effect “relativistic” ? Very funny. What the Sagnac says is that the velocity of light in a rotating frame is NOT the same depending of orientation — and without that it couldn’t be used as a gyroscope.

  39. The sagnac effect relativistic”” ? Very funny. What the Sagnac says is that the velocity of light in a rotating frame is NOT the same depending of orientation — and without that it couldn’t be used as a gyroscope.”””

  40. No. I will not imagine he is citing people correctly, because he isn’t.

    And if you had read my post, you would realize you are wrong. He took words from two (2) separate sources, only one (1) of which is linked.

    Why are you defending this?

  41. Yes, writing is a skill. That’s why this is not better. It’s plagiarism and it’s theft of something you concede is valuable due to the difficulty of its production.

    Why are you defending this?

  42. Writing is skill and it takes a lot of time to do properly. I know I don’t have this skill. 😉 Science writing is even harder. Brian used to write a lot more in the past and it wasn’t exactly awarding winning quality. Maybe what he does now is actually better in that more professional people spent a lot more time doing the writing.

  43. Just imagine quotation marks around the entire article. 90% of the content on this site is quotes from the linked pages. It was never claimed to be original, and the links are there.

  44. It’s not hard to have higher precision than a grain of rice. Asking seriously: Is English Brian’s second language? He doesn’t write like somebody with a feel for it.

  45. It’s not hard to have higher precision than a grain of rice. Asking seriously: Is English Brian’s second language? He doesn’t write like somebody with a feel for it.

  46. Once again, just blatant plagiarism. The final paragraph is lifted entirely from the linked Nature abstract. The first paragraphs are lifted entirely from an unlinked public Nature press release.

    You are an unrepentant thief, Brian Wang.

  47. Now that you said it, I can see where you’re coming from. Granted, English isn’t my first language, either, but when I first read that phrase I didn’t think that the “more precise” referred to the grain of rice, but to an elided expression like, for example, “than before” or something to that effect.

  48. The sagnac effect “relativistic” ? Very funny. What the Sagnac says is that the velocity of light in a rotating frame is NOT the same depending of orientation — and without that it couldn’t be used as a gyroscope.

  49. It’s not hard to have higher precision than a grain of rice. Asking seriously: Is English Brian’s second language? He doesn’t write like somebody with a feel for it.

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