Noise-resilient nanophotonic gyroscope with sub-prad phase resolution

TL;DR

This paper presents a noise-resilient nanophotonic optical gyroscope on a 3 mm^2 chip, achieving unprecedented stability and sensitivity, thus enabling navigation-grade performance in ultra-compact devices.

Contribution

The authors introduce a two-chain decoupling architecture that isolates rotation signals from noise, significantly enhancing nanophotonic gyroscope performance.

Findings

Achieved bias instability of 1.42 deg/h, 4 orders of magnitude better than similar devices.

Realized an angle random walk of 0.001 deg/√h, 6 orders of magnitude improvement.

Demonstrated sub-prad phase resolution applicable to integrated photonic sensing.

Abstract

Optical gyroscopes based on the Sagnac effect are the cornerstone of precision orientation and navigation. However, their bulky form factors prevent deployment in emerging mobile and autonomous systems. On nanophotonic platforms, the Sagnac signal plummets under aggressive miniaturization. Consequently, the signal is easily swamped by refractive-index fluctuations, rendering navigation-grade sensitivity within just a few square millimeters a notoriously elusive goal. Here, we demonstrate a noise-resilient nanophotonic optical gyroscope by exploiting a two-chain decoupling architecture to effectively isolate the rotation signal from channel noise. Implemented on a 3 mm^2 passive silicon nitride chip, the proof-of-concept device achieves a bias instability of 1.42 deg/h and an angle random walk of 0.001 deg/\sqrt{h}, representing improvements of 4 and 6 orders of magnitude, respectively, over the representative nanophotonic gyroscope of similar footprint (ref. 27). In the broader context of integrated optical gyroscopes, our approach bridges the long-standing size-performance gap by two to three orders of magnitude, moving chip-scale devices into a previously inaccessible regime and pointing toward navigation-relevant precision for monolithic microsystems. This architecture further enables sub-prad phase resolution with general applicability, establishing a foundational framework for the next generation of robust, monolithically integrated photonic sensing systems.