Minimizing the Dick Effect in an Optical Lattice Clock

TL;DR

This paper presents methods to reduce the Dick effect in optical lattice clocks by optimizing operation sequences and atom recycling, significantly improving clock stability.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach combining optimized timing and non-destructive detection to minimize the Dick effect in optical lattice clocks.

Findings

Achieved potential fractional Allan deviation below 2E-16 at 1 second

Demonstrated effective atom recycling reduces cycle time

Optimized timing sequences significantly improve clock stability

Abstract

We discuss the minimization of the Dick effect in an optical lattice clock. We show that optimizing the time sequence of operation of the clock can lead to a significant reduction of the clock stability degradation by the frequency noise of the interrogation laser. By using a non-destructive detection of the atoms, we are able to recycle most of the atoms between cycles and consequently to strongly reduce the time spent capturing the atoms in each cycle. With optimized parameters, we expect a fractional Allan deviation better than 2E-16$\tau^{-1/2}$ for the lattice clock.