Clock Development Activities at the U.S. Naval Observatory

T. G. Akin, Bryan Hemingway, Steven Peil, J. D. Whalen

Abstract:	The U.S. Naval Observatory (USNO) is continually working to improve the technology used to generate its master clock. The USNO rubidium fountains, the first cold-atom clocks to report to the BIPM as continuously running clocks, have been in operation for over a decade and have received the maximum weight in TAI continuously for almost all of that time. New laser technology has improved fountain robustness, and recent demonstrations using an optical local oscillator for microwave generation show improved short-term performance below 10?13 at 1s. Optical-clock development for future master-clock enhancement includes a program to build calcium-beam clocks intended to run continuously as well as an effort to develop a strontium optical lattice. The lattice clock will serve as a gold-standard frequency reference, available for intermittent measurement campaigns.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 54th Annual Precise Time and Time Interval Systems and Applications Meeting January 23 - 26, 2023 Hyatt Regency Long Beach Long Beach, California
Pages:	179 - 182
Cite this article:	Akin, T. G., Hemingway, Bryan, Peil, Steven, Whalen, J. D., "Clock Development Activities at the U.S. Naval Observatory," Proceedings of the 54th Annual Precise Time and Time Interval Systems and Applications Meeting, Long Beach, California, January 2023, pp. 179-182. https://doi.org/10.33012/2023.18690
Full Paper:	ION Members/Non-Members: 1 Download Credit Sign In