A chip-scale atomic beam clock

Fuente: arXiv

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors:	Martinez, Gabriela D., Li, Chao, Staron, Alexander, Kitching, John, Raman, Chandra, McGehee, William R.
Format:	Preprint
Published:	2023
Subjects:	Atomic Physics
Online Access:	Acceder al recurso
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_version_	1866914182784352256
author	Martinez, Gabriela D. Li, Chao Staron, Alexander Kitching, John Raman, Chandra McGehee, William R.
author_facet	Martinez, Gabriela D. Li, Chao Staron, Alexander Kitching, John Raman, Chandra McGehee, William R.
contents	Atomic beams are a longstanding technology for atom-based sensors and clocks with widespread use in commercial frequency standards. Here, we report the demonstration a chip-scale microwave atomic beam clock using coherent population trapping (CPT) interrogation in a passively pumped atomic beam device. The beam device consists of a hermetically sealed vacuum cell fabricated from an anodically bonded stack of glass and Si wafers. Atomic beams are created using a lithographically defined microcapillary array connected to a Rb reservoir1 and propagate in a 15 mm long drift cavity. We present a detailed characterization of the atomic beam performance (total Rb flux $\approx 7.7 \times 10^{11} s^{-1}$ at 363 K device temperature) and of the vacuum environment in the device (pressure < 1 Pa), which is sustained using getter materials which pump residual gases and Rb vapor. A chip-scale beam clock is realized using Ramsey CPT spectroscopy of the 87Rb ground state hyperfine transition over a 10 mm Ramsey distance in the atomic beam device. The prototype atomic beam clock demonstrates a fractional frequency stability of $\approx 1.2 \times 10^{-9}/\sqrtτ$ for integration times $τ$ from 1 s to 250 s, limited by detection noise. Optimized atomic beam clocks based on this approach may exceed the long-term stability of existing chip-scale clocks, and leading long-term systematics are predicted to limit the ultimate fractional frequency stability below $10^{-12}$.
format	Preprint
id	arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2303_11458
institution	arXiv
publishDate	2023
record_format	arxiv
spellingShingle	A chip-scale atomic beam clock Martinez, Gabriela D. Li, Chao Staron, Alexander Kitching, John Raman, Chandra McGehee, William R. Atomic Physics Atomic beams are a longstanding technology for atom-based sensors and clocks with widespread use in commercial frequency standards. Here, we report the demonstration a chip-scale microwave atomic beam clock using coherent population trapping (CPT) interrogation in a passively pumped atomic beam device. The beam device consists of a hermetically sealed vacuum cell fabricated from an anodically bonded stack of glass and Si wafers. Atomic beams are created using a lithographically defined microcapillary array connected to a Rb reservoir1 and propagate in a 15 mm long drift cavity. We present a detailed characterization of the atomic beam performance (total Rb flux $\approx 7.7 \times 10^{11} s^{-1}$ at 363 K device temperature) and of the vacuum environment in the device (pressure < 1 Pa), which is sustained using getter materials which pump residual gases and Rb vapor. A chip-scale beam clock is realized using Ramsey CPT spectroscopy of the 87Rb ground state hyperfine transition over a 10 mm Ramsey distance in the atomic beam device. The prototype atomic beam clock demonstrates a fractional frequency stability of $\approx 1.2 \times 10^{-9}/\sqrtτ$ for integration times $τ$ from 1 s to 250 s, limited by detection noise. Optimized atomic beam clocks based on this approach may exceed the long-term stability of existing chip-scale clocks, and leading long-term systematics are predicted to limit the ultimate fractional frequency stability below $10^{-12}$.
title	A chip-scale atomic beam clock
topic	Atomic Physics
url	https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.11458