Abstract
We report on the operation of a 10 m perimeter, helium–neon based ring laser gyroscope on the $3{s_2} \to 2{p_6}$ (611.8 nm) and $3{s_2} \to 2{p_{10}}$ (543.4 nm) transitions of neon. Cavity $Q$ factors of $1.5 \times {10^{12}}$ and $3.8 \times {10^{11}}$ are obtained for 611.8 and 543.4 nm operation, inferred from measured ring-down times of 485 and 110 μs, respectively. For Sagnac frequencies, due to Earth rotation, of 205.14 and 230.96 Hz, minimum resolvable rotation rates of 80 and 226 prad/s are achieved for integration times of around 100 s. While environment limited performance is achieved for operation at 611.8 nm, it is found that a restrictive gas pressure regime must be utilized for the 543.4 nm lasing wavelength. As a consequence, the output photon count is low, which limits its intrinsic sensitivity for rotation rate measurements.
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