An ²⁷Al⁺ quantum-logic clock with systematic uncertainty below 10^-18

2019/02/28 by S. M. Brewer, J. -S. Chen, A. M. Hankin +5 · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #physics.atom-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.123.033201

published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 123, 033201 (2019) · 5 pages 4 figures + supplemental material 9 pages 5 figures

arxiv created 2019/05/22 · arxiv updated 2019/07/24

Abstract

We describe an optical atomic clock based on quantum-logic spectroscopy of the ¹S₀ ↔ ³P₀ transition in ²⁷Al⁺ with a systematic uncertainty of 9.4 × 10^-19 and a frequency stability of 1.2×10^-15/√τ. A ²⁵Mg⁺ ion is simultaneously trapped with the ²⁷Al⁺ ion and used for sympathetic cooling and state readout. Improvements in a new trap have led to reduced secular motion heating, compared to previous ²⁷Al⁺ clocks, enabling clock operation with ion secular motion near the three-dimensional ground state. Operating the clock with a lower trap drive frequency has reduced excess micromotion compared to previous ²⁷Al⁺ clocks. Both of these improvements have led to a reduced time-dilation shift uncertainty. Other systematic uncertainties including those due to blackbody radiation and the second-order Zeeman effect have also been reduced.

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