A high-stability optical clock based on a continuously ground-state cooled Al$^+$ ion without compromising its accuracy
Abstract
Single ion optical clocks have shown systematic frequency uncertainties below , but typically require more than one week of averaging to achieve a corresponding statistical uncertainty. This time can be reduced with longer probe times, but comes at the cost of a higher time-dilation shift due to motional heating of the ions in the trap. We show that sympathetic ground-state cooling using electromagnetically-induced transparency (EIT) of an \Al clock ion via a co-trapped \Ca ion during clock interrogation suppresses the heating of the ions. \Al can be kept close to the motional ground state, independent from the chosen interrogation time, at a relative time dilation shift of . The \Ca cooling light introduces an additional light shift on the \Al clock transition of . We project that the uncertainty of this light shift can be further reduced by nearly an order of magnitude. This sympathetic cooling enables seconds of interrogation time with motional and cooling laser-induced uncertainties for \Al and can be employed in other ion clocks as well.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2509.22525,
title = {A high-stability optical clock based on a continuously ground-state cooled Al$^+$ ion without compromising its accuracy},
author = {Fabian Dawel and Lennart Pelzer and Kai Dietze and Johannes Kramer and Marek Hild and Steven A. King and Nicolas C. H. Spethmann and Joshua Klose and Kilian Stahl and Sören Dörscher and Erik Benkler and Christian Lisdat and Sergey G. Porsev and Marianna S. Safronova and Piet O. Schmidt},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2509.22525},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
14 pages, 4 figures, 7 tables