A Comprehensive Review of Rubidium Two-Photon Vapor Cell Optical Clock: Long-Term Performance Limitations and Potential Improvements

Two-photon vapor cell-based optical clocks are strong candidates for next-generation portable atomic standards, offering simplicity, compactness, and high performance. Their narrow clock transitions with counter-propagating beams enable first-order Doppler-free operation. However, systematic perturb...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Asagwegbe C. Obaze-Adeleke, Bryan Semon, Thejesh N. Bandi
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2025-05-01
Series:Photonics
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Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6732/12/5/513
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Summary:Two-photon vapor cell-based optical clocks are strong candidates for next-generation portable atomic standards, offering simplicity, compactness, and high performance. Their narrow clock transitions with counter-propagating beams enable first-order Doppler-free operation. However, systematic perturbations such as the AC Stark shift, temperature-induced shift, and drifts resulting from the laser system pose challenges cause instabilities to medium- to long-term performance. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of Rb two-photon vapor cell optical standards, focusing on the long-term performance-limiting effects and potential mitigation strategies, aiming for clock stabilities better than 1 × 10<sup>−15</sup> over the averaging time of a day and beyond.
ISSN:2304-6732