An Ultra-Stable Referenced Interrogation System in the Deep Ultraviolet for a Mercury Optical Lattice Clock

Abstract

We have developed an ultra-stable source in the deep ultraviolet, suitable to fulfill the interrogation requirements of a future fully-operational lattice clock based on neutral mercury. At the core of the system is a Fabry-Pérot cavity which is highly impervious to temperature and vibrational perturbations. The mirror substrate is made of fused silica in order to exploit the comparatively low thermal noise limits associated with this material. By stabilizing the frequency of a 1062.6 nm Yb-doped fiber laser to the cavity, and including an additional link to LNE-SYRTE's fountain primary frequency standards via an optical frequency comb, we produce a signal which is both stable at the 1E-15 level in fractional terms and referenced to primary frequency standards. The signal is subsequently amplified and frequency-doubled twice to produce several milliwatts of interrogation signal at 265.6 nm in the deep ultraviolet.

7 pages, 6 figures

References in corpus (5)

• Sr lattice clock at 1x10^{-16} fractional uncertainty by remote optical evaluation with a Ca clock
• Ultrastable lasers based on vibration insensitive cavities
• ${}^{87}$Sr lattice clock with inaccuracy below 10${}^{-15}$
• Trapping of Neutral Mercury Atoms and Prospects for Optical Lattice Clocks
• Doppler-free spectroscopy of the 1S0-3P0 optical clock transition in laser-cooled fermionic isotopes of neutral mercury

Cited by in corpus (10)

• Progress in Atomic Fountains at LNE-SYRTE
• A neutral atom frequency reference in the deep UV with 10^(-15) range uncertainty
• A cavity-stabilized laser with acceleration sensitivity below $10^{-12}$/g
• Atomic fountains and optical clocks at SYRTE: status and perspectives
• Characterizing a fiber-based frequency comb with electro-optic modulator
• Reducing the effect of thermal noise in optical cavities
• Simple vibration insensitive cavity for laser stabilization at the 10^{-16} level
• Laser locking to the 199Hg clock transition with 5.4x10^(-15)/sqrt(tau) fractional frequency instability
• Phase-stabilized UV light at 267 nm through twofold second harmonic generation
• Intercombination line frequencies in ${}^{171}$Yb validated with the clock transition