Integrated physics package of micromercury trapped ion clock with 10−14-level frequency stability
Thai M. Hoang, Sang K. Chung, Thanh Le, J. D. Prestage, Lin Yi, R. L. Tjoelker, Sehyun Park, Sung‐Jin Park, J. G. Eden, C.E. Holland, Nan Yu
Abstract
Mercury trapped ion clocks have demonstrated great long-term frequency stability and robustness. In this paper, we report a demonstration of an integrated 100-cc physics package in an effort to develop a micromercury trapped ion clock with high frequency stability. The physics package consists of a sealed 30-cc vacuum tube with one layer of magnetic shielding, light source, and detector assembly. A field emitter array and a 194-nm microplasma lamp were employed together with a microtrap tube to reduce the size and power consumption for a mercury trapped ion clock. We show that the 100-cc physics package is capable of providing a fractional frequency stability of 1×10−11τ−1/2 down to 5×10−14 after a few hours of integration. We also show a set of environmental sensitivity evaluations as well as the clock frequency retrace.