Lasing of cesium active optical clock with 459 nm laser pumping

Abstract

We realize the lasing of cesium active optical clock with 459 nm laser pumping, which operates deep in the optical bad-cavity regime. The ratio between cavity bandwidth and gain bandwidth is 55.08 theoretically. With 459 nm laser pumping, the population inversion occurs between the cesium 7S <inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">1/2</inf> state and 6P <inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">3/2</inf> state, and the stimulated radiation between the two states is realized. The 1469.9 nm output signal of cesium active optical clock can reach a power of 8 μW. The output power also shows a threshold character with pumping laser power and can be influenced by the Cs cell temperature. This active optical clock has an advantage in stability over the conventional optical clocks, due to its suppression of cavity pulling effect, which is also demonstrated experimentally.