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Journal of the Optical Society of America B

Semiconductor laser excitation of Ramsey fringes by using a Raman transition in a cesium atomic beam

Philip Hemmer, M. S. Shahriar, B. E. Bernacki, Shaoul Ezekiel, Horacio Lamela, Steven P. Smith

Published Aug 1, 1993• 47 citations
Publisher

Abstract

An amplitude-modulated semiconductor laser is used to excite a 9.2-GHz Raman transition in a cesium atomic beam. Separated-field Ramsey fringes as narrow as 1 kHz wide are observed with a high signal-to-noise ratio, even for semiconductor laser linewidths as wide as 20 MHz. These narrow resonances have potential application in the development of high-accuracy, optically excited atomic clocks.

DOI
10.1364/josab.10.001326

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Frontiers in Physics•Dec 13, 2022•3 citations
An amplitude-modulated semiconductor laser is used to excite a 9.2-GHz Raman transition in a cesium atomic beam. Separated-field Ramsey fringes as narrow as 1 kHz wide are observed with a high signal-to-noise ratio, even for semiconductor laser linewidths as wide as 20 MHz. These narrow resonances have potential application in the development of high-accuracy, optically excited atomic clocks.
Precision studies of stimulated-resonance Raman interactions in a sodium atomic beam were performed with emphasis on Ramsey’s separated-field excitation. Ramsey fringes were obtained for a field separation of up to 30 cm, and the data were consistent with theoretical predictions. Possible applications of this Raman interaction to clock development also were studied by stabilizing a microwave oscillator to a Raman–Ramsey fringe. The resulting oscillator stability of 1.5 × 10−11 for a 1000-sec averaging time compares favorably with commercial cesium clocks when differences in atom transit time and transition frequency are taken into consideration. Finally, potential sources of long-term frequency error, which are important for clock applications, were also partially investigated.
Herein, we report the scheme of an optically pumped atomic clock based on a cold cesium atomic beam source. We propose the laser system and physical mechanism of this atomic clock, wherein the atomic beam travels in an upper parabolic trajectory, thereby eliminating the light shift effect. In the experiments, when the length of the free evolution region was 167 mm, the line width of the Ramsey fringe was 37 Hz. When the expected signal-to-noise ratio of the Ramsey fringe that can be achieved is 36,000, the expected short-term frequency stability is about 3.6 × 10–14/√τ, which is significantly higher than that of a conventional optically pumped cesium clock of similar volume.