JP2007178273A - Atomic frequency acquisition apparatus and atomic clock - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To achieve further compactness of atomic clocks while maintaining accuracy. <P>SOLUTION: An atomic clock is provided with: a cell 110 in which atomic gas is sealed inside; a laser diode 120 for oscillating a laser beam which is made incident into the cell 110 to excite the atomic gas; a photo-detector 130 for receiving a laser beam transmitted through the cell 110; a first waveguide 140 for introducing a laser beam oscillated from the laser diode 120 into the cell 110; and a second waveguide 150 for introducing a laser beam transmitted through the cell 110 to the photo-detector 130. The first waveguide 140 is provided with a reflecting plane 141 formed in such a way that the laser beam oscillated from the laser diode 120 becomes incident at an angle of incidence of 45°. The second waveguide 150 is provided with a reflecting plane 151 formed in such a way that the laser beam transmitted through the cell 110 becomes incident at an angle of incidence of 45°. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2007,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to an atomic frequency acquisition device and an atomic clock.

  An atomic clock that controls the frequency of an oscillator based on the natural frequency of an atom is used in various situations in place of a conventional crystal unit. Among them, a CPT (Coherent Population Trapping) type atomic clock is suitable for miniaturization and power saving, and is expected to be applied to mobile phones and the like in the future.

US Pat. No. 6,900,702 US Pat. No. 6,570,459

  An object of the present invention is to further reduce the size while maintaining the accuracy of an atomic clock.

  An atomic frequency acquisition device of the present invention includes a cell in which an atomic gas is enclosed, a laser light source that oscillates a laser beam that enters the cell and excites the atomic gas, and a laser beam that has passed through the cell. A first light guide that guides laser light oscillated from the laser light source into the cell, and a second waveguide that guides laser light that has passed through the cell to the light receiver, Each of the first and second waveguides is provided with at least one laser beam reflecting portion.

Thus, the laser light can be guided by the first and second waveguides so that the laser light takes the longest optical path in the cell, so that the distance that the laser light passes through the atomic gas in the cell is increased. Therefore, it is possible to reduce the size without degrading the accuracy of the apparatus.
Further, the laser beam can be guided by changing the optical path by the laser beam reflecting section provided in each of the first and second waveguides.

The first waveguide includes a first reflecting portion formed so that laser light oscillated from the laser light source is incident at an incident angle of 45 degrees, and the second waveguide includes the first waveguide When the laser beam that has passed through the cell is provided with a second reflecting portion formed so as to be incident at an incident angle of 45 degrees, the emission direction from the laser light source is orthogonal to the longest optical path direction in the cell. It can correspond to.
In this case, for example, a surface-emitting laser light source can be used as the laser light source.

  The atomic frequency acquisition device according to the present invention can be used to acquire a time standard frequency in an atomic clock.

Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.
Embodiment 1 FIG.
1 is a perspective view showing the structure of an atomic frequency acquisition apparatus 100 according to Embodiment 1 of the present invention, FIG. 2A is a cross-sectional view taken along the line AA ′ of FIG. 1, and FIG. FIG. The atomic frequency acquisition device 100 is used to acquire a time standard frequency in a CPT type atomic clock.
As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, the atomic frequency acquisition device 100 includes a cell 110, a laser diode (laser light source) 120, a photodetector (light receiving unit) 130, a first waveguide 140, and the like installed on a substrate 200. A second waveguide 150 is provided. A heater 300 is installed on the upper surface of the cell 110. The laser diode 120, the photodetector 130, and the heater 300 are connected to a drive circuit by wiring (not shown).

The cell 110 is installed on the substrate 200 by the protrusion 114. The laser diode 120 and the photodetector 130 are arranged on the substrate 200 with the cell 110 interposed therebetween.
Here, the laser diode 120 is a VCSEL (Vertical Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser).

  The cell 110 is made of glass only in the light transmission part, and the other is made of metal, for example, and has a cavity 111 inside. As a material of the cell, in addition to glass, a material that transmits laser light oscillated from the laser diode 120 (here, wavelength of VCSEL 852 nm) can be used. The cavity 111 is filled with cesium atomic gas.

One surface of the first waveguide 140 is in contact with the laser diode 120, and the other surface is in contact with the incident surface 112 of the cell 110. The first waveguide 140 has a reflecting portion 141 through which the laser beam output from the laser diode 120 enters at an incident angle of 45 degrees. A metal film or the like is formed on the reflecting portion 141 and reflects the laser light.
One surface of the second waveguide 150 is in contact with the photodetector 130, and the other surface is in contact with the emission surface 113 of the cell 110. The second waveguide 150 has a reflecting portion 151 into which the laser beam output from the emission surface 113 is incident at an incident angle of 45 degrees. A metal film or the like is formed on the reflecting portion 151 and reflects the laser light.
The first waveguide 140 and the second waveguide 150 can be formed by, for example, an inkjet method.

  The heater 300 is a heater for keeping the temperature in the cavity 111 constant (80 to 130 degrees), and by heating the inside of the cell 110, the cesium atom density is increased and the number of atoms excited by the laser light. Is increasing. As the number of excited atoms increases, the sensitivity is improved and the accuracy of the atomic frequency acquisition device 100 is improved.

Next, the operation of the atomic frequency acquisition device 100 will be described.
The laser light (L) emitted from the laser diode 120 travels through the first waveguide 140 as shown in FIG. 2A, is reflected by the reflecting portion 141, rotates the optical path by 90 degrees, and The light passes through the incident surface 112 and enters the cell 110.

  The laser light travels straight in the cell 110 parallel to the substrate 200, and passes through the second waveguide 150 when exiting the cell 110 from the exit surface 113. The laser beam is reflected by the reflecting portion 151, rotates the optical path by 90 degrees, and is introduced into the photodetector 130.

The laser light excites cesium atoms while passing through the cell 110. The difference between the upper and lower sideband frequencies of the laser beam when the intensity of the laser beam passing through the excited cesium atom gas is maximized matches the natural frequency of the cesium atom. Therefore, the modulation frequency of the laser diode 120 is adjusted by performing feedback control with an external circuit so that the intensity of the laser beam received by the photodetector 130 is maximized.
The feedback control system includes a control circuit connected to the atomic frequency acquisition apparatus 100 and a local oscillator, and the output of the photodetector 130 is supplied to the local oscillator via the control circuit to perform feedback control. The oscillation frequency is stabilized with reference to the natural frequency of the cesium atom.
The oscillation frequency adjusted as described above is acquired from the local oscillator and used as the standard signal of the atomic clock.

According to the first embodiment, the laser light output from the laser diode 120 is introduced into the cell 110 by changing the traveling direction in the reflecting portion 141 of the first waveguide 140, and further the laser light that has passed through the cell 110. Is introduced into the photodetector 130 by changing the traveling direction in the reflecting portion 151 of the second waveguide 150, so that the laser light passes through the longest optical path in the cell 110 regardless of the emission direction of the laser diode 120. Can be. Therefore, even if the volume of the cell 110 itself is small, the distance that the laser beam passes through the cesium atom gas can be increased, so that more cesium atoms can be excited and the accuracy of the atomic frequency acquisition device 100 is maintained. be able to.
In addition, since the reflecting portion 141 and the reflecting portion 151 form a curved reflecting surface, even when laser light is incident with a spreading angle, the spreading can be suppressed by the condensing action of the reflecting surface, and the photodetector By increasing the amount of light received at 130, the accuracy of the atomic frequency acquisition apparatus 100 can be increased.

  The incident surface 112 and the emission surface 113 may be inclined from a surface perpendicular to the optical axis of the laser light. As a result, part of the laser light is reflected by the incident surface 112 and the exit surface 113, thereby preventing the light from traveling backward in the optical path and returning to the laser diode 120 (return light).

FIG. 3 is a modification of the atomic frequency acquisition apparatus 100 according to the first embodiment. As shown in the figure, a reflection film 142 for increasing the reflectance of the laser beam on the outer wall surface of the portion corresponding to the reflecting portion 141 of the first waveguide 140 and the reflecting portion 151 of the second waveguide 150, 152 is provided. The same reference numerals as those in FIGS. 1 and 2 represent the same components. As the reflection films 142 and 152, for example, an Al alloy, an Ag alloy, or the like that reflects laser light (here, a wavelength of VCSEL of 852 nm) can be used.
In addition, since the reflection films 142 and 152 form a curved reflection surface, even when the laser light is incident with a spread angle, the spread can be suppressed by the condensing action of the reflection surface. The accuracy of the atomic frequency acquisition apparatus 100 can be increased by increasing the amount of received light.

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing the structure of an atomic frequency acquisition device according to Embodiment 1 of the present invention. 2A is a cross-sectional view taken along line A-A ′ in FIG. 1, and FIG. 2B is a top view of the atomic frequency acquisition device. FIG. 3 is a cross-sectional view of a modification of the atomic frequency acquisition device according to the first embodiment.

Explanation of symbols

100 atomic frequency acquisition device, 110 cell, 111 cavity, 112 entrance surface, 113 exit surface, 114 protrusion, 120 laser diode, 130 photodetector, 140 first waveguide, 150 second waveguide, 141, 151 reflector 142,152 Reflective film, 200 substrate, 300 heater

Claims (4)

A cell containing an atomic gas inside;
A laser light source that oscillates a laser beam that enters the cell and excites the atomic gas;
A light receiving unit that receives the laser light that has passed through the cell;
A first waveguide for introducing laser light oscillated from the laser light source into the cell;
A second waveguide for introducing laser light that has passed through the cell into the light receiving unit;
Each of the first and second waveguides is provided with at least one laser beam reflecting section. The first waveguide includes a first reflecting portion formed so that laser light oscillated from the laser light source is incident at an incident angle of 45 degrees,
The said 2nd waveguide was equipped with the 2nd reflection part formed so that the laser beam which passed the inside of the said cell may enter at an incident angle of 45 degree | times, The said 2nd waveguide is characterized by the above-mentioned. Atomic frequency acquisition device.   The atomic frequency acquisition apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the laser light source is a surface emitting laser light source. An atomic clock comprising the atomic frequency acquisition device according to any one of claims 1 to 3.

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