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

Making It Possible - Portable Strontium Lattice Clock

Megan Smith, Pontus Palomurto, Thomas Catanach, Y. B. Kale, Yeshpal Singh, Ian R. Hill, Shirin Hussein, B. P. Allen

Published May 12, 2025• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

In order to realise the potential applications of highly stable optical lattice clocks, the clocks must be deployable in real-world environments and function fully outside of a laboratory environment. This paper will describe the building of a compact yet robust optical lattice clock system. The uncertainty and instability of this system is expected to approach the 5 x 10-18level.

DOI
10.1109/eftf/ifcs64367.2025.11194418

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In order to realise the potential applications of highly stable optical lattice clocks, the clocks must be deployable in real-world environments and function fully outside of a laboratory environment. This paper will describe the building of a compact yet robust optical lattice clock system. The uncertainty and instability of this system is expected to approach the 5 x 10-18level.
Abstract We report on a transportable optical clock, based on laser-cooled strontium atoms trapped in an optical lattice. The experimental apparatus is composed of a compact source of ultra-cold strontium atoms including a compact cooling laser setup and a transportable ultra-stable laser for interrogating the optical clock transition. The whole setup (excluding electronics) fits within a volume of \\2 m3. The high degree of operation reliability of both systems allowed the spectroscopy of the clock transition to be performed with 10 Hz resolution. We estimate a relative uncertainty of the clock of 7 9 10-15. 1
Atomic clocks have been in common use since the 1950s and over this period the clock community has had two main goals: increasing the performance of the clocks and increasing their portability. At Birmingham we aim to compress a strontium optical lattice clock, a clock with an extremely high accuracy, into a portable package. Many novel approaches need to be employed to allow such a clock to operate with a favorable SWaP while maintaining the low instability and uncertainty that makes optical clocks a desirable frequency standard. The focus of this work is to use laser activation of a strontium compound as the atomic source for the clock. Previously work published by this group [1] demonstrated that it is possible to release the strontium atoms from strontium oxide successfully load a magneto-optical trap (MOT).
Optical atomic clocks have proven to be the most stable clocks with the lowest systematic uncertainty which has now reached a record level of (9.4 X10/(^{19}/)). Thus optical clocks now surpass the best fountain Cs atomic clocks by three orders of magnitude which opens the prospect of using optical clocks as frequency standards for timekeeping in the near future. \n \nThis thesis describes the progress that has been made towards a stationary optical lattice clock based on strontium atoms, and reports the results of an ongoing characterization. \n \nAn experimental apparatus was designed and built to efficiently slow, cool, and trap the strontium atoms which represent the heart of the strontium optical lattice clock discussed in this thesis. The novel aspects of the experimental development described in the thesis comprise a frequency doubling cavity for producing 461 nm laser light employed for cooling and trapping the strontium atoms in the first stage cooling. This cavity provided sufficient power for cooling and trapping the strontium atoms for up to 300 mW of 461 nm laser light. Furthermore, a new design of Zeeman slower based on spherical permanent magnets was produced, built and characterized. \n \nThe slower is compact, tunable, easy to assemble and maintain, and cost-effective as the permanent magnets do not require any power supply or water cooling. It is suggested that this kind of Zeeman slower constitutes an ideal solution for portable optical clock systems. A blue magneto-optical trap was realized for the first time with such a Zeeman slower. With about 30 mW of a 461 nm laser, up to 6X10/(^8/) atoms were captured.