Design and preliminary characterization of the USNO rubidium fountain

Abstract

We have built and begun characterization of an engineering prototype rubidium atomic fountain at the USNO for use in its clock ensemble. We achieve short-term stability of 1.4times10 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">-13</sup> /tau <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">frac12</sup> , which meets the desired performance for characterizing maser drift. We discuss the design, operation, and preliminary characterization of this device