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Chinese Physics Letters

An Ultra-Miniature Cell-Type Rb Atomic Clock Based on a Novel Waveguide Cavity

Li-Na Bai, Yuanhong Cao, Leiji Liu, Lin Yang, Xingshi Zheng, Wei Zhou

Published Sep 1, 2014• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We introduce a novel waveguide cavity for ultra-miniature cell-type Rb atomic clock. In the cavity, a coupling ring shaped to be a semi-circle imports an rf signal from electronics, a screw regulator acts as a medium coupler to transmit the microwave signal into the absorption cell, and both the parts serve as a filter to suppress useless components except 6.8 GHz. Furthermore, the waveguide cavity can be used to design a miniature Rb atomic clock, and spread it to a chip-scale atomic clock. We have completed the design of the smallest cell-type Rb atomic clock in the world based on this waveguide cavity. It has not only a small size but also obviously better key performances than those of other miniature Rb atomic clocks. This ultra-miniature cell-type Rb atomic clock aging is 4 × 10 −13 /d, which is obviously slower than that of other miniature Rb atomic clocks.

DOI
10.1088/0256-307x/31/9/098402

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The main advantage of chip scale atomic clock (e.g., Knappe (2008)) (CSAC) over quartz-oscillators is the higher long-term stability. It is provided by non-aging resonance of unperturbed atoms. However it is not a simple task to suppress all possible perturbations. Hence, metrological properties of resonance depend on the way in which ensemble of atoms is localized in space and protected. The paper describes a technology of small all-glass Rb cells production. The sealing of cells is made with radiation of a СО 2 lasers. The cells will be utilized in Rb CSAC based on the phenomenon of coherent population trapping (CPT). (Pat. No RU 2014101361)
Vapor-cell devices based on microwave interrogation provide a stable frequency reference with a compact and robust setup. Further miniaturization must focus on optimizing the physics package, containing the microwave cavity and atomic reservoir. In this article, we present a compact cavity-cell assembly based on a dielectric-loaded cylindrical resonator. The loaded cavity resonating at 6.83 GHz has an external volume of only 35 cm3and accommodates a vapor cell with 0.9-cm3inner volume. The proposed design aims at strongly reducing the core of the atomic clock, maintaining, at the same time, high-performing short-term stability (σy(τ)≤5×10−13 τ−1/2\sigma _{y}{(}\tau {)} \leq {5}\times {10}^{-{13}} \,\tau ^{-{1}/{2}}σy​(τ)≤5×10−13τ−1/2 standard Allan deviation). The proposed structure is characterized in terms of microwave field uniformity and atom-field coupling with the aid of finite-element calculations. The thermal sensitivity is also analyzed and experimentally characterized. We present preliminary spectroscopy results by integrating the compact cavity within a rubidium clock setup based on the pulsed optically pumping technique. The obtained clock signals are compatible with the targeted performances. The loaded-cavity approach is, thus, a viable design option for miniaturized microwave clocks.
We present our microwave spectroscopic studies on laser-microwave double-resonance (DR) signals obtained from a micro-fabricated Rb vapor cell.This study focuses on the characteristics and systematic shifts of the ground-state 'clock transition' in 87 Rb (|F g = 1, m F = 0 →| F g = 2, m F = 0 ) used in Rb atomic clocks, and represents a first step toward a miniature atomic clock based on the DR scheme.A short-term clock instability below 2 × 10 11 τ -1/2 is demonstrated, staying below 10 -11 up to τ = 10 4 s.