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Joint Conference of the European Frequency and Time Forum and IEEE International Frequency Control Symposium (EFTF/IFCS)

Pulsed optically pumped rubidium clock with ultrahigh resonance contrast

Deng Jianliao, 林锦达 Lin Jinda, Qian Jun, Gongxun Dong, He Huijuan, Wang Yu-Zhu

Published May 1, 2014• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

In this paper, we report a dispersive detection technique with ultrahigh resonance contrast based on magneto-optical effect. To demonstrate specifically the advantages of the dispersive detection, we applied it in the pulsed optically pumped (POP) clock to obtain the clock signal. The contrast of Ramsey central fringe versus the parameters of pumping light, detection light and microwave power are studied experimentally. An ultrahigh resonance contrast greater than 90% is obtained. The frequency stability of POP clock in terms of Allan deviation for dispersive detection is improved by an order of magnitude over the absorptive detection under equivalent condition. We also present the preliminary experimental result in case of off resonance detection where a laser with large frequency detuning is used as detection light. The signal intensity detected by off resonance light is improved about 70% than the resonant light.

DOI
10.1109/fcs.2014.6859920

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In this paper, we report a dispersive detection technique with ultrahigh resonance contrast based on magneto-optical effect. To demonstrate specifically the advantages of the dispersive detection, we applied it in the pulsed optically pumped (POP) clock to obtain the clock signal. The contrast of Ramsey central fringe versus the parameters of pumping light, detection light and microwave power are studied experimentally. An ultrahigh resonance contrast greater than 90% is obtained. The frequency stability of POP clock in terms of Allan deviation for dispersive detection is improved by an order of magnitude over the absorptive detection under equivalent condition. We also present the preliminary experimental result in case of off resonance detection where a laser with large frequency detuning is used as detection light. The signal intensity detected by off resonance light is improved about 70% than the resonant light.
A compact magnetron-type microwave cavity has previously been developed for a high performance Rb atomic clock based on conventional continuous-wave double-resonance (DR) interrogation. This magnetron-type cavity shows a homogenous microwave field distribution while having a cavity volume of only 35 cm3. So it is interesting for realizing a high performance Rb cell clock based on pulsed optical pumping (POP) technique with a reduced physics package size. In this proceeding we report on the evaluation of pulsed optical pumping with our magnetron-type cavity. Using the pulsed technique and optical detection, high-contrast Ramsey fringes were observed. The central fringe of the Ramsey signal has a linewidth of 160 Hz and contrast of 35%. Under these conditions, the shot-noise limit is estimated at a level around 2×10-14τ-1/2which shows the great potential of a POP clock based on the compact magnetron-type cavity. The Rabi oscillation result also indicates an acceptable uniform field distribution inside the cavity for a high-performance POP clock. Some optimizations of pumping and detection power for improving the contrast are also presented.
We report a high-performance pulsed optically pumped (POP) Rb clock based on a novel magnetron-type microwave cavity. The cavity has a volume of 30 mL, enabling a highly homogenous microwave field distribution. With the laser frequency tuning to the ground-state hyperfine level F = 2 of the D2line, we observe a Ramsey fringe contrast of 52% in terms of optical absorption detection. The resultant shot noise limit is estimated to be 1.6 × 10-14τ-1/2. The clock frequency stability is measured as 2.3 × 10-13τ-1/2(1-100 s), which is limited by the relative intensity noise of the light.
In general, the linewidth of the Ramsey central fringe (RCF) is equal to 1/(2T), where T is the Ramsey free-evolution time. We demonstrate that the RCF linewidth of a pulsed optically pumped (POP) atomic clock with orthogonal polarization detection based on the magneto-optical rotation effect can be narrowed down to 1/(4T). The Allan deviation of the POP atomic clock decreases from 2.4×10−13τ−1/2 to 1.4×10−13τ−1/2. This corresponds to an improvement in the frequency stability by about 60%. We also estimate the main noise sources that limit the short-term frequency stability of the POP atomic clock.
We present theoretical and experimental studies concerning the realization of a rubidium vapor cell frequency standard based on the pulsed optical pumping (POP) technique. This technique is extremely powerful since it avoids in principle the light shift effect and the noise conversions from the laser to the clock signal. The detection of the clock transition in the microwave domain (the so called POP maser) has been extensively investigated at INRIM and a frequency stability of 1.1 × 10-12τ-1/2 has been measured until integration times of 105 s, reaching the level of 5 × 10-15 (drift removed). The optical detection is still under evaluation but this technique may lead in effect to some advantages with respect to the microwave detection, such as a lower or negligible cavity pulling, a lower operation temperature (which implies a lower spin exchange contribution) and a higher signal-to-noise ratio. All these features may lead to a better frequency stability performance than that previously reached. Read More: http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/9789812838223_0040
In this paper we report the results we obtained with a prototype of pulsed optically pumped (POP) Rb clock. In terms of frequency stability, an Allan deviation σy(τ)=1.7 ×10-13τ-1/2has been measured, where τ is the integration time. In addition, the long term frequency drift results below 10-14/day. In the paper we also describe a technique to stabilize the amplitude of the microwave signal using the atoms themselves as discriminator. Moreover, an anomalously large temperature sensitivity of the clock frequency and a technique to keep it under control are also reported. Finally, we describe some non linear effects that modify the shape of the clock signal represented by the Ramsey central fringe.