[time-nuts] What does determine the short term stability of an Rb vapor cell standard?

Dana Whitlow k8yumdoober at gmail.com
Sun Mar 25 15:13:56 EDT 2018


Could it be that with the narrow-band laser emission the dip in
light transmission of the Rb cell is significantly improved?   I know
that diode lasers are generally not paragons of virtue when it comes
to intensity noise, so I'm wondering what accounts for the claims of
better SNR with laser illumination.

Dana Whitlow

On Sun, Mar 25, 2018 at 8:18 AM, Attila Kinali <attila at kinali.ch> wrote:

> Moikka moi,
>
> In the past, it has been again and again claimed that the HP 5065 has
> such an outstanding short term stability because of its large vapor cell.
> But the more I read, the less I believe this. E.g. if you look at the
> papers by the group around Gaetano Mileti and Christoph Affolderbach
> from University of Neuchatel, you'll see that they get an ADEV well
> below 1e-12 with a vapor cell that is just 3x3cm (actually smaller
> than that... but details). Yes, they use a laser instead of an Rb lamp,
> which increases SNR. But that would mean it's not the cell size per se
> that limits the short term stability, but the pumping of the atoms
> and the light noise on the photo cell. Hence it should be, theoretically
> at least, be possible, to take one of the telecom Rubidium standards,
> replace the lamp with something better, and come close to the performance
> of an 5065.... So, what part of this is wrong and what am I missing?
>
>
>                         Attila Kinali
>
> --
> It is upon moral qualities that a society is ultimately founded. All
> the prosperity and technological sophistication in the world is of no
> use without that foundation.
>                  -- Miss Matheson, The Diamond Age, Neil Stephenson
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