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Performance of 3 cm3 ion trap vacuum package sealed for 10 years

Journal Article · · Applied Physics Letters
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0243517· OSTI ID:2563972
 [1];  [1]
  1. Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations
Miniature atomic clocks based on the interrogation of the ground state hyperfine splitting of buffer gas cooled ions confined in radio frequency Paul traps have shown great promise as high precision prototype clocks. We report on the performance of two miniature ion trap vacuum packages after being sealed for as much as 10 years. We find the lifetime of the ions within the trap has increased over time for both traps and can be as long as 50 days. We form two clocks using the two traps and compare their relative frequency instability one with another to demonstrate a short-term instability of 5×10-13$$τ$$-1/2 integrating down to 1×10-14 after 2 ks of integration. The trapped ion lifetime and clock instability demonstrated by these miniature devices despite only being passively pumped for many years represents a critical advance toward their proliferation in the clock community.
Research Organization:
Sandia National Laboratories (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
US Department of the Navy, Office of Naval Research (ONR); USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
Grant/Contract Number:
NA0003525
OSTI ID:
2563972
Report Number(s):
SAND--2025-05285J
Journal Information:
Applied Physics Letters, Journal Name: Applied Physics Letters Journal Issue: 13 Vol. 126; ISSN 0003-6951
Publisher:
American Institute of Physics (AIP)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Related Subjects

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS
Clocks
Hyperfine structure
Ion-trap