Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

A Spin-1/2 Optical Lattice Clock

Published

Author(s)

Nathan D. Lemke, Andrew D. Ludlow, Zeb Barber, Tara M. Fortier, Scott A. Diddams, Yanyi Jiang, Steven R. Jefferts, Thomas P. Heavner, Thomas E. Parker, Christopher W. Oates

Abstract

We experimentally investigate an optical clock based on 171Yb (I = 1/2) atoms confined in an optical lattice. We have evaluated all known frequency shifts to the clock transition, including the density-dependent collision shift, with an uncertainty of 0.19 Hz, or 3.6× 10−16 fractionally, limited principally by uncertainty in the blackbody radiation Stark shift. We have measured the absolute clock transition frequency relative to the NIST-F1 Cs fountain clock and find the frequency to be 518 295 836 590 865.7(0.9) Hz.
Citation
Physical Review Letters
Volume
103

Keywords

lasers, other standards, spectroscopy

Citation

Lemke, N. , Ludlow, A. , Barber, Z. , Fortier, T. , Diddams, S. , Jiang, Y. , Jefferts, S. , Heavner, T. , Parker, T. and Oates, C. (2009), A Spin-1/2 Optical Lattice Clock, Physical Review Letters, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=901526 (Accessed April 16, 2024)
Created August 7, 2009, Updated February 19, 2017