High-performance coherent population trapping clock with polarization modulation

Abstract

We demonstrate a vapor cell atomic clock prototype based on continuous-wave (CW) interrogation and double-modulation coherent population trapping (DM-CPT) technique. The DM-CPT technique uses a synchronous modulation of polarization and relative phase of a bi-chromatic laser beam in order to increase the number of atoms trapped in a dark state, i.e. a non-absorbing state. The narrow resonance, observed in transmission of a Cs vapor cell, is used as a narrow frequency discriminator in an atomic clock. A detailed characterization of the CPT resonance versus numerous parameters is reported. A short-term frequency stability of $3.2\times 10^{-13}{\tau }^{-1/2}$ up to 100 s averaging time is measured. These performances are more than one order of magnitude better than industrial Rb clocks and comparable to those of best laboratory-prototype vapor cell clocks. The noise budget analysis shows that the short and mid-term frequency stability is mainly limited by the power fluctuations of the microwave used to generate the bi-chromatic laser. These preliminary results demonstrate that the DM-CPT technique is well-suited for the development of a high-performance atomic clock, with potential compact and robust setup due to its linear architecture. This clock could find future applications in industry, telecommunications, instrumentation or global navigation satellite systems.

14 pages, 25 figures, 2 tables

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• Stationary pulses of light in an atomic medium
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• Coherent Population Trapping Resonances in Buffer Gas-filled Cs Vapor Cells with Push-Pull Optical Pumping
• Simple method of light-shift suppression in optical pumping systems
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• A high-sensitivity push-pull magnetometer
• Coherent population trapping with polarization modulation

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