Bulletin of the American Physical Society

Optimization of a Prototype Atomic Clock Based on Coherent Population Trapping

Eugeniy E. Mikhailov, Nathan Belcher, Irina V. Novikova

Published Oct 30, 2008• 1 citation

Abstract

The goal of this project is to optimize parameters of a prototype atomic clock to achieve the best Allan variance. We have established a prototype atomic clock using coherent population trapping (CPT) by creating a laser system to lock the laser’s frequency to an atomic resonance in rubidium and utilized radiofrequency (rf) modulation to create a sideband and carrier comb. With the system assembled, we have achieved our best Allan variance of 4 × 10−10 for a 15 torr Neon buffer gas cell, but have changed to a 5 torr Neon buffer gas cell to decrease the Allan variance.

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