Oscillator-free atomic clock using a multimode laser

Abstract

We developed an atomic clock using two modes from a single extended-cavity diode laser in multimode operation. The two modes are phase locked with reference to a dispersion signal from a coherent population trapping (CPT) resonance of Rb-85 at 3.036 GHz. The design is in principle free from an oscillator and a modulator and it is a significant simplification over a conventional CPT-based atomic clock. Allan deviation of the beat frequency is 1x10(-10) at 200 s integration time. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3435474]