Related papers: Experimenting an optical second with strontium lat…
Demands from several areas of science and technology have lead to a worldwide search for accurate optical clocks with an uncertainty of 1 part in $10^{18}$, which is $10^{3}$ times more accurate than the present day cesium atomic clocks…
Optical atomic clocks demonstrate a better stability and lower systematic uncertainty than the highest performance microwave atomic clocks. However, the best performing optical clocks have a large footprint in a laboratory environment and…
Some 50~years ago, physicists, and after them the entire world, started to found their time reference on atomic properties instead of motions of the Earth that have been in use since the origin. Far from being an arrival point, this…
Optical lattice clocks of fermionic strontium offer a versatile platform for probing fundamental physics and developing quantum technologies. The bivalent electronic structure of strontium gives rise to a doubly-forbidden atomic transition…
We describe a measurement of the frequency of the 2S1/2(F = 0) - 2D3/2(F' = 2) transition of 171Yb+ at the wavelength 436 nm (frequency 688 THz), using a single Yb+ ion confined in a Paul trap and two caesium fountains as references. In one…
The new strontium atomic clock at INRIM seeks to establish a new frontier in quantum measurement by joining state-of-the-art optical lattice clocks and the quantized electromagnetic field provided by a cavity QED setup. The goal of our…
We have quantified a short term instability budget for an optical frequency standard based on cold, freely expanding calcium atoms. Such systems are the subject of renewed interest due to their high frequency stability and relative…
Theories unifying gravity and other interactions suggest the possibility of spatial and temporal variation of physical ``constants''. Accuracy achieved for the atomic optical frequency standards (optical clocks) approaches the level when…
Robust and portable optical clocks promise to bring sub-picosecond timing instability to smaller form factors, offering possible performance improvements and new scenarios for positioning and navigation, radar technologies, and experiments…
The optical atomic clock based on the $5S_{1/2} \rightarrow 5D_{5/2}$ two-photon transition in rubidium is a candidate for a next generation, manufacturable, portable clock that fits in a small size, weight, and power (SWaP) envelope. Here,…
We observe a weakly allowed optical transition of atomic ytterbium from the ground state to the metastable state $4f^{13}5d6s^2 \: (J=2)$ for all five bosonic and two fermionic isotopes with resolved Zeeman and hyperfine structures. This…
Current state-of-the-art frequency standards are passive optical atomic clocks where the frequency of an optical resonator is stabilized to a narrow atomic transition. Passive clocks have achieved unprecedented stabilities of 6.6 x 10--19…
This article describes the recent progress of optical lattice clocks with neutral strontium ($^{87}$Sr), ytterbium ($^{171}$Yb) and mercury ($^{199}$Hg) atoms. In particular, we present frequency comparison between the clocks locally via an…
We demonstrate a new method of cavity-enhanced non-destructive detection of atoms for a strontium optical lattice clock. The detection scheme is shown to be linear in atom number up to at least 10,000 atoms, to reject technical noise…
The preparation of large, low-entropy, highly coherent ensembles of identical quantum systems is foundational for many studies in quantum metrology, simulation, and information. Here, we realize these features by leveraging the favorable…
Optical molecular clocks promise unparalleled sensitivity to the temporal variation of the electron-to-proton mass ratio and insight into possible new physics beyond the Standard Model. We propose to realize a molecular clock with bosonic…
We search for ultralight scalar dark matter candidates that induce oscillations of the fine structure constant, the electron and quark masses, and the quantum chromodynamics energy scale with frequency comparison data between an $^{171}$Yb…
We propose a new frequency standard based on a $4f^{14} 6s6p~ ^3\!P_0 - 4f^{13} 6s^2 5d ~(J=2)$ transition in neutral Yb. This transition has a potential for high stability and accuracy and the advantage of the highest sensitivity among…
Recent developments in frequency metrology and optical clocks have been based on electronic transitions in atoms and singly charged ions as references. These systems have enabled relative frequency uncertainties at a level of a few parts in…
The transfer of high-quality time-frequency signals between remote locations underpins a broad range of applications including precision navigation and timing, the new field of clock-based geodesy, long-baseline interferometry, coherent…