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International Conference on Space Optics (ICSO)

Compact and frequency stabilized laser heads for Rubidium atomic clocks

Florian Gruet, Matthieu Pellaton, C. Affolderbach, Thejesh Bandi, Renaud Matthey, G. Mileti

Published Nov 20, 2017• 20 citations
Publisher

Abstract

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.

DOI
10.1117/12.2309135

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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.
We demonstrated a compact 780 nm rubidium optical clock, which includes an optical frequency standard and an optical frequency comb, with an optical volume of 11.6 liters. Unlike the 778 nm rubidium atomic clocks based on two-photon transition, here, the laser frequency is stabilized to the Rb D2 transition, using modulation transfer spectroscopy. This approach effectively eliminates Doppler background and provides a high signal to noise ratio and high sensitivity. A nearly 300 MHz microwave signal, whose phase exactly tracks that of the optical frequency standard, is generated via the optical frequency comb, yielding a frequency instability of 1.91 E-13 @1 s and 5.29 E-14 @1000 s in the electronic domain. To the best of our knowledge, this is the most precise frequency stabilization result for the first-excited-state transition of alkali metal atoms to date and represents the first optical clock based on this transition. These results offer a promising approach for the development of portable optical clocks.
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 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.
We report our studies on using microwave-optical double-resonance (DR) spectroscopy for a high-performance Rb vapour-cell atomic clock in view of future industrial applications.The clock physics package is very compact with a total volume of only 0.8 dm 3 .It contains a recently in-house developed magnetron-type cavity and a Rb vapour cell.A homedmade frequency-stabilized laser system with an integrated acousto-optical-modulator (AOM)for switching and controlling the light output power-is used as an optical source in a laser head (LH).The LH has the overall volume of 2.5 dm 3 including the laser diode, optical elements, AOM and electronics.In our Rb atomic clock two schemes of continuous-wave DR and Ramsey-DR schemes are used, where the latter one strongly reduces the light-shift effect by separation of the interaction of light and microwave.Applications of the DR clock approach to more radically miniaturized atomic clocks are discussed.