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Session P1b: Advances in Ground Atomic Clocks

Radium ion Optical Clocks
Andrew M. Jayich, Physics Department, UC Santa Barbara
Location: Royal Ballroom AB
Date/Time: Tuesday, Jan. 27, 4:23 p.m.

Transportable optical clocks are important for near term applications such as clock comparisons, and for longer term applications such as space-based gravitational wave detectors. Trapped ion optical clocks are appealing for their robustness and potential to operate at low powers and in a small volume. If the clock can utilize integrated photonics performance along these metrics can be further improved. We aim to lower the requirements for integrated photonics with radium ion transitions that only require IR light. This requires radium-225, which has the necessary nuclear spin for such a clock. We've laser cooled this isotope and measured hyperfine splitting. Despite radium-225’s short 15 day half-life we have demonstrated an atomic source that is compatible with decades of continuous operation.

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