BOULDER — ColdQuanta Inc. won two federal government contracts to apply its cold-atom technology in military applications, with the combined contracts worth approximately $2.55 million.

An office within the U.S. Department of Defense awarded $1.8 million to the Boulder company to develop a prototype atomic clock as part of an onboard navigation system in aircraft that activates if the plane loses connection to a satellite GPS.

The other $750,000 contract from the Air Force Research Laboratory is for development of a miniature ion trap system. Ion traps act as spectrometers for measuring physical forces at the atomic level, and are useful in the study of quantum computing and atomic timekeeping.

ColdQuanta’s technology mainly revolves around using lasers to freeze individual atoms to near-absolute zero, a state that can be used in applications ranging from making extremely accurate scientific instruments to playing a role in quantum computing.

Former Zayo Holdings Inc. CEO Dan Caruso joined the company several weeks ago to help commercialize the technology, and the company has tapped an investment bank to lead what it expects to be a mammoth Series B fundraising round.

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