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

Cell-based stabilized laser sources and light-shifts in pulsed Rb atomic clocks

Nil Almat, William Moreno, Matthieu Pellaton, Mohammadreza Gharavipour, Florian Gruet, C. Affolderbach, G. Mileti

Published Jul 1, 2017• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

We report on a narrow-linewidth diode laser source emitting at 780 nm, based on frequency doubling from 1.56 μm, which is frequency stabilized on the D2 transition line of Rubidium (Rb). This compact laser source shows a frequency stability of 2·10-12at 1 s and-12for τ up to 104s. This laser source is evaluated in a modular four-laser setup to identify and locate the sources of instabilities. In view of the lasers' applications to vapor-cell Rb atomic clocks, we also studied the various light-shift coefficients in a pulsed optically-pumped Rb clock. Finally, we evaluate the impact of the frequency and intensity instabilities of the frequency-doubled optical sources on the clock stability.

DOI
10.1109/fcs.2017.8088801

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Characterization of Frequency-Doubled 1.5-μ\muμ m Lasers for High-Performance Rb Clocks
We report on the characterization of two fiber-coupled 1.5-μm diode lasers, frequency-doubled and stabilized to Rubidium (Rb) atomic resonances at 780 nm. Such laser systems are of interest in view of their implementation in Rb vapor-cell atomic clocks, as an alternative to lasers emitting directly at 780 nm. The spectral properties and the instabilities of the frequency-doubled lasers are evaluated against a state-of-the-art compact Rb-stabilized laser system based on a distributed-feedback laser diode emitting at 780 nm. All three lasers are frequency stabilized using essentially identical Doppler-free spectroscopy schemes. The long-term optical power fluctuations at 780 nm are measured, simultaneously with the frequency instability measurements done by three beat notes established between the three lasers. One of the frequency-doubled laser systems shows at 780 nm excellent spectral properties. Its relative intensity noise-12Hz-1is one order of magnitude lower than the reference 780-nm laser, and the frequency noise6Hz2/Hz is limited by the laser current source. Its optical frequency instability is-12at τ = 1 s, limited by the reference laser, and better than 1 × 10-11at all timescales up to one day. We also evaluate the impact of the laser spectral properties and instabilities on the Rb atomic clock performance, in particular taking into account the light-shift effect. Optical power instabilities on long-term timescales, largely originating from the frequency-doubling stage, are identified as a limitation in view of high-performance Rb atomic clocks.
We present the development and complete spectral characterization of our compact and frequency-stabilized laser heads, to be used for rubidium atomic clocks and basic spectroscopy. The light source is a Distributed Feed-Back (DFB) laser diode emitting at 780 nm or 795 nm. The laser frequency is stabilized on a sub-Doppler absorption peak of the 87Rb atom, obtained from an evacuated rubidium cell. These laser heads, including the electronics for the light signals detection, have an overall volume of 0.63 liters. We also present a variant of the laser head into which is integrated an Acousto-Optical Modulator (AOM) that precisely detunes the laser frequency in order to minimize the AC Stark shift in Rb atomic clocks.
The paper presents the realisation of a high-performance vapour-cell atomic frequency standard demonstrator based on laser optical pumping. The development of such devices aims to fully exploit the advantages of using a narrow-band diode laser pump light source instead of the discharge lamps commonly used in Rb gas-cell clocks. These advantages include improved control over the pump light spectrum, higher selectivity of the optical pumping, and increased signal contrast, and thus show the potential for the realisation of Rb atomic clocks with improved short-term frequency stability.
We evaluate the influence of 2 types of laser sources with different spectral profiles on the performance of vapor cell atomic clocks based on lin||lin coherent population trapping (CPT) resonances. We show that a short-term stability of 1-2 x 10(-11) tau(-1/2) may be reached in a compact system using a modulated vertical cavity surface-emitting laser. Here the stability is limited by the detection noise level and can be improved up to a factor of 4 by increasing the lock-in detection frequency to several tens of kilohertz, which is not possible in standard double resonance atomic clocks. We compare these results with CPT prepared under the same experimental conditions, using 2 phase-locked extended cavity diode lasers, with which we predict a challenging short-term stability of 1-3 x 10(-13) tau(-1/2), comparable to the state-of-the-art laser-pumped Rb-clocks.