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Conference on Precision Electromagnetic Measurements

Toward compact clocks with cold cesium atoms

C. Guillemot, Emmanuel Guillot, P. Petit, Constance Valentin, N. Dimarcq

Published Nov 27, 2002• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We present first a new 3-dimensional cooling configuration with isotropic light. We demonstrate that this cooling technique is very efficient and easy to operate. Secondly, we present two simple clock configurations using a source of atoms cooled in isotropic light. We expect these clocks to be very compact with good frequency performances.

DOI
10.1109/cpem.1998.699738

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arXiv:0901.1707•Jan 13, 2009•0 citations
We present first a new 3-dimensional cooling configuration with isotropic light. We demonstrate that this cooling technique is very efficient and easy to operate. Secondly, we present two simple clock configurations using a source of atoms cooled in isotropic light. We expect these clocks to be very compact with good frequency performances.
We present a compact cold-atom clock configuration where isotropic laser cooling, microwave interrogation, and clock signal detection are successively performed inside a spherical microwave cavity. For ground operation, a typical Ramsey fringe width of 20 Hz has been demonstrated, limited by the atom cloud's free fall in the cavity. The isotropic cooling light's disordered properties provide a large and stable number of cold atoms, leading to a high signal-to-noise ratio limited by atomic shot noise. A relative frequency stability of $2.2\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}13}{\ensuremath{\tau}}^{\ensuremath{-}1/2}$ has been achieved, averaged down to $4\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}15}$ after $5\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{3}$ s of integration. Development of such a high-performance compact clock is of major relevance for on-board applications, such as satellite-positioning systems. As a cesium clock, it opens the door to a new generation of compact primary standards and timekeeping devices.
We present a novel cesium beam physics package, which uses optical techniques to combine the high signal-to-noise ratios achievable by optical pumping and beam brightening with the narrow linewidth allowed by a slow atomic beam. Our design can be realized in a compact, robust package suitable for space applications. Our approach differs from other laser-cooled clocks in that we use a cold-atom source that provides a continuous beam. We estimate the shot noise-limited stability that can be achieved with this physics package to be two to three orders of magnitude better than that of current compact cesium beam atomic clocks.
Our aim is to use cold atoms not for reducing instability or inaccuracy in the range of 10/sup -16/ or better, but to use them for reducing the size of atomic clocks. The key idea of HORACE is to fold in a microwave cavity every zone of the atomic resonator of a standard clock: zones of cooling and atomic preparation, zone of interrogation and zone of detection. Then the cell of HORACE has to be a microwave cavity as well as an optical cavity. Thus cooling of cesium atoms can only be obtained by isotropic cooling light generated inside it. In this paper, we first expose the main features of HORACE and two different configurations. Metrological aspects as well as the way the atoms would be efficiently cooled are then developed. A preliminary validation of HORACE is also demonstrated.
In this paper we describe an experiment of efficient cooling of 87^{87}87Rb atoms in two-frequency diffuse laser lights. Compared with single frequency diffuse light, two-frequency diffuse lights have wider velocity capture range and thus can cool more atoms. In our experiment, the maximum number of cooled atoms can reach up to 3.9×1093.9\times10^93.9×109. Such a result is quite useful in building a compact cold atom clock.