Microfabricated chip-scale rubidium plasma light source for miniature atomic clocks.
- Venkatraman V Microsystems for Space Technologies Laboratory (LMTS), Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Neuchâtel, Switzerland. vinu.venkat@epfl.ch
- Pétremand Y
- Affolderbach C
- Mileti G
- de Rooij NF
- Shea H
- 2012-04-07
Published in:
- IEEE transactions on ultrasonics, ferroelectrics, and frequency control. - 2012
English
We present the microfabrication and characterization of a low-power, chip-scale Rb plasma light source, designed for optical pumping in miniature atomic clocks. A dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) configuration is used to ignite a Rb plasma in a micro-fabricated Rb vapor cell on which external indium electrodes were deposited. The device is electrically driven at frequencies between 1 and 36 MHz, and emits 140 μW of stable optical power while coupling less than 6 mW of electrical power to the discharge cell. Optical powers of up to 15 and 9 μW are emitted on the Rb D2 and D1 lines, respectively. Continuous operation of the light source for several weeks has been demonstrated, showing its capacity to maintain stable optical excitation of Rb atoms in chip-scale double-resonance atomic clocks.
- Language
-
- English
- Open access status
- green
- Identifiers
-
- DOI 10.1109/TUFFC.2012.2214
- PMID 22481778
- Persistent URL
- https://sonar.ch/global/documents/111873
Statistics
Document views: 38
File downloads:
- Full-text: 0