Atomic Clock with 1x10-18 Room-Temperature Blackbody Stark Uncertainty

Published

December 31, 2014

Author(s)

Kyle P. Beloy, Nathan M. Hinkley, Nate B. Phillips, Jeffrey A. Sherman, Marco Schioppo, John H. Lehman, Ari D. Feldman, Leonard M. Hanssen, Christopher W. Oates, Andrew D. Ludlow

Abstract

The Stark shift due to blackbody radiation (BBR) is a key factor limiting the performance of many atomic frequency standards, with the BBR environment inside the clock apparatus being difficult to characterize at a high level of precision. Here we demonstrate an in-vacuum radiation shield that furnishes a uniform, well-characterized BBR environment for the atoms in an ytterbium optical lattice clock. Operated at room temperature, this shield enables specification of the BBR environment to a corresponding fractional clock uncertainty contribution of 5.5x10^-19. Combined with uncertainty in the atomic response, the total uncertainty of the BBR Stark shift is now 1x10^-18. Further operation of the shield at elevated temperatures enables a direct measure of the BBR shift temperature dependence and demonstrates consistency between our evaluated BBR environment and the expected atomic response.

Citation

Physical Review Letters

Volume

113

Pub Type

Journals

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Keywords

BBR shift, blackbody radiation shift, optical lattice clock, Stark effect, ytterbium

Citation

Beloy, K. , Hinkley, N. , Phillips, N. , Sherman, J. , Schioppo, M. , Lehman, J. , Feldman, A. , Hanssen, L. , Oates, C. and Ludlow, A. (2014), Atomic Clock with 1x10^-18 Room-Temperature Blackbody Stark Uncertainty, Physical Review Letters, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=917153 (Accessed October 31, 2024)