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

The Miniaturized Integrating Sphere Cold Atom Clock based on Fiber Mirrors

王秀梅 Wang Xiumei, Danyang Wang, Yifei Wang, Wenming Wang, Bohan Deng, Shiguang Li, Yunjia Wang, Weili Wang, Liang Wang, Jin He, Jingbiao Chen

Published May 15, 2023• 0 citations

Abstract

SummaryDiffuse laser cooling provides a compact cold atom system for quantum precision measurement processes, especially for the integrating sphere cold atom clock. However, the laser cooling system of current integrating sphere cold atom clock is bulky and complex, which is not conductive to the miniaturization of cold atom clock. In order to make a less complex diffuse laser cooling system, we adopt the scheme to combine the fiber mirrors and the diffuse laser cooling technique. The incident laser beams are reflected by the fiber mirrors and teflon, and the atoms can be successfully cooled and detected in the miniaturized zone. The preparation of fiber mirrors and the realization of diffuse laser cooling system with a simple optical system can lay a solid foundation for further miniaturization of the overall system of integrating sphere cold atom clock in the future.

DOI: 10.1109/eftf/ifcs57587.2023.10272152

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SummaryDiffuse laser cooling provides a compact cold atom system for quantum precision measurement processes, especially for the integrating sphere cold atom clock. However, the laser cooling system of current integrating sphere cold atom clock is bulky and complex, which is not conductive to the miniaturization of cold atom clock. In order to make a less complex diffuse laser cooling system, we adopt the scheme to combine the fiber mirrors and the diffuse laser cooling technique. The incident laser beams are reflected by the fiber mirrors and teflon, and the atoms can be successfully cooled and detected in the miniaturized zone. The preparation of fiber mirrors and the realization of diffuse laser cooling system with a simple optical system can lay a solid foundation for further miniaturization of the overall system of integrating sphere cold atom clock in the future.

We present a scheme for a compact rubidium cold-atom clock which performs diffuse light cooling, microwave interrogation, and detection of the clock signal in a cylindrical microwave cavity. The diffuse light is produced by laser light reflection at the inner surface of the microwave cavity. The pattern of the injected laser beams is specially designed to accumulate the majority of the cold atoms in the center of the microwave cavity. Microwave interrogation of the cold atoms in the cavity leads to Ramsey fringes, which have a linewidth of

24.5

Hz with a contrast of

95.6%

when the free evolution time is 20 ms. Recently, a frequency stability of $7.3\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}13}\phantom{\rule{0.28em}{0ex}}{\ensuremath{\tau}}^{\ensuremath{-}1/2}$ has been achieved. The scheme of this physical package can largely reduce the cold-atom clock complexity and increase clock performance.

We present a highly stable and miniaturised optical system designed for a caesium satellite-borne cold atom clock (CSCAC). The optical system was integrated on a$224\,{\mathop{\rm mm}\nolimits} \times 195\,{\mathop{\rm mm}\nolimits} \times 112\,{\mathop{\rm mm}\nolimits} $aluminium-based silicon carbide bench and emitted laser beams with four different frequencies on three fiber ports to capture, cool, prepare, and detect atoms. The optical system, utilizing a compact three-layer optical-mechanical and thermal management design, passed environmental simulation tests and adapted to a special satellite-borne environment. The optical system stability meets the laser requirements of the clock.

In this paper we describe an experiment on laser cooling of

^{87}\mathrm{Rb}

atoms directly from a vapor background in diffuse light. Diffuse light is produced in a ceramic integrating sphere by multiple scattering of two laser beams injected through multimode fibers. A probe beam, whose propagation direction is either horizontal or vertical, is used to detect cold atoms. We measured the absorption spectra of the cold atoms by scanning the frequency of the probe beam, and observed both the absorption signal and the time of flight signal after we switched off the cooling light, from which we estimated the temperature and the number of cold atoms. This method is clearly attractive for building a compact cold atom clock.

Abstract This article proposes a new physics package to enhance the frequency stability of the space cold atom clock with the advantages of a microgravity environment. Clock working processes, including atom cooling, atomic state preparation, microwave interrogation, and transition probability detection, are integrated into the cylindrical microwave cavity to achieve a high-performance and compact physics package for the space cold atom clock. We present the detailed design and ground-test results of the cold atom clock physics package in this article, which demonstrates a frequency stability of 1.2 × 10−12 τ −1/2 with a Ramsey linewidth of 12.5 Hz, and a better performance is predicted with a 1 Hz or a narrower Ramsey linewidth in microgravity environment. The miniaturized cold atom clock based on intracavity cooling has great potential for achieving space high-precision time-frequency reference in the future.