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Compact microwave rubidium clock
Compact microwave rubidium clock
Paris Observatory - SYRTE
I built an atomic clock based on rubidium 87 cooled by isotropic light cooling (ILC), using Ramsey microwave interrogation and absorption detection.
Using ILC allows to reduce the cooling time (100 ms), and therefore the cycle time. It used a fibre optical bench, based on frequency-doubled telecom technology, which reduces the size of the system.
The experiment is transportable, and was carried out in two simulated microgravity flights campaigns. That allowed to generate the smallest fringes ever obtained in microgravity, with a FWHM of 1.25 Hz for a 400 ms of interrogation time.
The results were published in Physical Review Applied 10, 064007 (2018).
Sensor head inside a cooper MW cavity, with six fibres to cool the atoms and aluminium with heating wires to control the cavity resonance mode.
Experiment set-up in the micro-gravity plane.
Fringes contrast at a 50 ms interrogation time in 0 g, 1 g and 2 g.
Estimated stability given by the fringes contrast and the fringes SNR.
0g phase during a microgravity flight.
Optical ytterbium ion clock
Optical ytterbium ion clock
NASA - JPL
Work in progress...
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