A scalable infrastructure for strontium optical clocks with integrated photonics
Abstract
Optical atomic clocks provide exceptionally accurate and precise signals for timekeeping and precision measurements, but they require high-power, free-space laser configurations that limit scalability. We introduce and explore a scalable infrastructure for strontium (Sr) optical-lattice clocks that incorporates co-design of atomic-beam slowing and a magneto-optical trap (MOT) from an effusion source, generation of complex, three-dimensional free-space laser configurations with a photonic integrated circuit (PIC) and metasurface (MS) optics, and laser stabilization to a frequency-comb supercontinuum generated with integrated nonlinear photonics. With these elements, we realize MOTs of all stable strontium isotopes (Sr, Sr, Sr, Sr) with populations commensurate with natural abundances, demonstrating precise beam control and robustness. Access to laser-cooled alkaline-earth atoms with scalable integrated photonics enables system engineering for optical clocks, quantum sensing, and quantum information, and our experiments demonstrate extensible technologies that advance toward a Sr optical clock largely free of bulk optics.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2604.03229,
title = {A scalable infrastructure for strontium optical clocks with integrated photonics},
author = {Zheng Luo and Travis C. Briles and Zachary L. Newman and Aidan R. Jones and Andrew R. Ferdinand and Sindhu Jammi and Grisha Spektor and David R. Carlson and Akash Rakholia and Dan Sheredy and Parth Patel and Martin M. Boyd and Chad Ropp and Daron Westly and Vladimir A. Aksyuk and Wenqi Zhu and Junyeob Song and Amit Agrawal and Scott B. Papp},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.03229},
year = {2026}
}