The innovation engine for new materials

Samuel Gebretsadkan

Samuel Gebretsadkan

Major: 

Physics

Mentor(s): 

Mingyu Fan

Faculty Sponsor(s): 

Andrew Jayich

Faculty Sponsor's Department(s): 

Physics

Project Title: 

Strontium-87 Ion Optical Clock for Quantum Metrology

Project Description: 

Optical clocks will enable us to improve inter-satellite communication accuracy in GPS and study physics laws such as gravitational red-shift. They can realize ultra-high precision by stabilizing lasers to narrow linewidth atomic transitions. Strontium-87 ions are a strong candidate for optical clocks as they can be laser cooled and have narrow linewidth S1/2 to D5/2atomic transitions. Many alkali-earth metals have been used in optical clocks, but the advantage of using Sr-87 ions is the accessibility to more magnetic field insensitive narrow linewidth transitions. We confine the ion using a linear Paul trap and doppler cool it to the order of milli-kelvin. To address all the Zeeman sublevels, we will be using Electrical Optical Modulators (EOM) and Acoustic Optical modulators (AOM) which will give us fine frequency control on the order of MHz. After cooling the ion and minimizing its micromotion, we shine our clock laser at the ion: a 674 nm narrow-linewidth beam that is frequency stabilized to a high finesse cavity. We then drive Zeeman pair transitions from the ground state (S1/2) to the metastable state (D5/2) via pi-pulsing our clock laser. Once the ion occupies the metastable state, we lock our 674 nm laser frequency to the S1/2 to D5/2 atomic transition and use the period of the light's oscillation as a time standard. We can stabilize this period by sending a feedback signal to the AOM whenever the ion falls down from the metastable state, establishing a constant absolute frequency source. A magnetic field insensitive Sr-87 ion clock will move us closer to a transportable atomic clock independently functioning on GPS satellites.