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

Eugeniy E. Mikhailov, Nathan Belcher, Irina V. Novikova

Li-Na Bai, Yuanhong Cao, Leiji Liu +3 more

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.

Mohammadreza Gharavipour, C. Affolderbach, Songbai Kang +1 more

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.

Daniel Farkas, A. A. Zozulya, Dana Z. Anderson

Matthieu Pellaton, Yves Pétremand, C. Affolderbach +2 more

We present first results on a laser-pumped, double resonance (DR) Rubidium atomic clock, based on micro-fabricated Rb vapour cells. The study aims towards a miniature atomic clock based on DR, using a low-power laser as pump light source and a miniaturized microwave coupling structure (that will replace the bulky microwave cavity employed in today's much bigger Rb clocks). Good signal amplitude, low background light level, and no need for GHz laser modulation are among the advantages of this approach.