According to NASA, it costs about $10,000 for every pound lifted into orbit, so designing essential components that are smaller and lighter is a constant struggle for engineers and project managers. But like so many other essential pieces of aerospace technology, weight is a perennial problem. Space probes, satellites, and rockets continuously rely on these systems for accurate flight control. More than creative learning toys, gyroscopes are indispensable components in a number of technologies, including inertial guidance systems, which monitor an object’s motion and orientation.
Ge and his colleagues, physicist Hui Cao and her student Raktim Sarma, both at Yale University (New Haven, CT), published their results in The Optical Society’s (OSA) journal Optica. "Though these so-called optical gyroscopes are not new, our approach is remarkable both in its super-small size and potential sensitivity." "We have found a new detection scheme that may lead to the world's smallest gyroscope," said Li Ge, a physicist at the Graduate Center and Staten Island College, City University of New York. RELATED ARTICLE: External-cavity semiconductor ring-laser gyro achieves single-mode operation By bringing this essential technology down to an entirely new scale, a team of applied physicists hopes to enable a new generation of phenomenally compact gyroscope-based navigation systems, among other intriguing applications. (Image credit: OSA)Ī pair of light waves-one zipping clockwise and the other counterclockwise around a microscopic track-may hold the key to creating the world’s smallest optical gyroscope: one a fraction of the width of a human hair. IMAGE: A super-small gyroscope could be used for chip-based navigation systems.
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