Abstract
Emerging optical frequency standards based on laser-cooled atoms and ions promise superior frequency stability and accuracy over existing microwave standards. However, until recently an appropriate clockwork for dividing down the very fast optical oscillations to a countable frequency had been missing. As demonstrated in the past few years, a clockwork based on mode-locked femtosecond lasers provides a convenient, robust, and accurate means of phase-coherently linking optical frequencies to standards in the microwave domain.1-3 This breakthrough has revolutionized optical frequency metrology and has enabled a new generation of atomic clocks based on optical transitions, in this talk, we will summarize our recent progress in using the femtosecond-laser- based clockwork in conjunction with the Ca and Hg+ optical frequency standards at NIST to make a functioning optical clock.4-5
© 2002 Optical Society of America
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