Properties of an optically pumped cesium-beam frequency standard with Φ=π between the two oscillatory fields

Abstract

The properties of optically pumped cesium-beam resonators showing a phase difference, /spl Phi/, of /spl pi/ between the two oscillatory fields are analyzed. They are compared with those occurring with /spl Phi/=0, when the interrogation signal is slowly square-wave frequency modulated. The value of the operating parameters which optimizes the resonator properties is given for /spl Phi/=0 and /spl pi/,taking into account the effect of the noise sources which perturb the atom detection. It is shown that the design with /spl Phi/=/spl pi/ is superior. It provides a better frequency stability and smaller frequency offsets. The conclusion holds for short as well as long tubes.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>