Compact atom interferometry inertial navigation sensors with tailored diffractive optics

An optical system comprising:

• laser cooling beam optics, the laser cooling beam optics adapted to receive a laser cooling beam and to generate at least two laser cooling sub-beams, the laser cooling beam optics including at least two reflective grating chips, the at least two reflective grating chips lying in a common plane, the laser cooling beam optics adapted to direct each laser cooling sub-beam toward a corresponding reflective grating chip, each reflective grating chip adapted to diffract a corresponding laser cooling sub-beam into a corresponding plurality of diffracted laser cooling beams;
• Raman combining optics, the Raman combining optics adapted to receive a pair of Raman laser beams and to combine the pair of Raman laser beams, thereby forming a combined pair of parallel-polarized Raman laser beams;
• Raman separating optics, the Raman separating optics adapted to receive the combined pair of parallel-polarized Raman laser beams and to separate the combined pair of parallel-polarized Raman laser beams into at least one triplet of first, second, and third pairs of Raman laser beams;
• at least one triplet of first, second, and third Raman redirector elements, each Raman redirector element adapted to receive a corresponding pair of Raman laser beams and to direct a corresponding pair of Raman laser beams such that a corresponding pair of Raman laser beams are overlapping and counter-propagating through an atomic cloud;
• and
• launching beam optics, the launching beam optics adapted to receive a launching beam, to separate the launching beam into at least one pair of launching sub-beams, a direction of a first launching sub-beam in each pair of launching sub-beams opposite a direction of a second launching sub-beam in each pair of launching sub-beams, and to direct each launching sub-beam such that a direction of each launching sub-beam is orthogonal to a direction of a corresponding triplet of first, second, and third pairs of Raman laser beams, each launching sub-beam adapted to deliver an initial momentum to atoms in a corresponding atomic cloud.