An Yb optical lattice clock: Current status at KRISS

Abstract

The current status of an Yb optical lattice clock at the Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science (KRISS) is reported. The systematic uncertainty of the Yb clock in the first accuracy evaluation was 1.5 × 10−14 [Park et al., Metrologia 50, 119 (2013)]. The uncertainty was dominated by the large uncertainties in the lattice ac Stark shift and the collisional shift, which were mainly limited by the large linewidth and jitter of the clock laser. Recently, a highly stable clock laser at 578 nm was developed with a short-term linewidth of 3.5 Hz and a frequency jitter of about 25 Hz at 1 s and 10 s measurement times, respectively. The long-term frequency drift showed only a linear dependence on time, confirming that the temperature of the super-cavity was maintained a zero coefficient of thermal expansion. The frequency of the lattice laser at 759 nm was phase locked to the optical frequency comb and could be stabilized at the “absolute” frequency of the “magic wavelength”, to within a 1-MHz uncertainty. This improvement greatly reduced the fractional uncertainty due to the lattice ac Stark shift down to 2 × 10−16. The systematic uncertainty of the clock is currently 5.3 × 10−15 and is dominated by the collisional frequency shift.