Atomic clocks based on cold atoms, single ions and their frequency measurement with femtosecond lasers

摘要

Substantial progress was recently achieved in the precision of Cs-atomic clocks using laser-cooled atom ensembles. It appears that precision of 10~(-18) is reachable using single ions on optical transitions confined within the Lamb-Dicke regime by laser-cooling. A femtosecond laser together with micro-structured fiber is used as a comb generator to relate the optical frequencies to radio frequencies, elimination the need for complex phase-locked laser frequency measurement chains as used in the past.