A Manufacturable Chip-Scale Atomic Clock

Abstract

Several factors are converging to enable atomic clocks to be manufactured with very small dimensions and run at low operating power. MOEMS technology, high-speed vcsels, microelectronics, wafer-scale packaging, and the all-optical CPT method of exciting atomic transitions are key ingredients in the quest to make precision time-keeping devices with chip-scale dimensions. In this paper we report on the design and process that enable an atomic clock to be made with a total volume of 1.7 cm^3, a total power budget of 57 mWatts, and an Allan Deviation at 1 hour of 5E-12.

Nuclear magnetic resonance gyroscopes

“…Their physics package design is similar to the design for their chip-scale atomic clock [71], and they use the comagnetometer approach to sensing rotation that was developed by the Romalis group [53].…”

Nuclear magnetic resonance gyroscopes

“…The company Honeywell has also proposed an idea for a chip-scale NMRG [70]. Their physics package design is similar to the design for their chip-scale atomic clock [71], and they use the comagnetometer approach to sensing rotation that was developed by the Romalis group [53].…”

Fully wireless implementation of distributed beamforming on a software-defined radio platform

“…In contrast, high quality ovenized oscillators with frequency tolerance of around 20 parts per billion are now available [25] for around 400 dollars. Highly stable chip-scale atomic clocks [33] are also now coming closer to commercial feasibility. As these highquality oscillators become more widely used in commodity wireless hardware, the overheads associated with carrier synchronization will become correspondingly smaller and this will make cooperative techniques such as distributed beamforming even more attractive over an increasing range of frequencies.…”