A Directly Connected Three-Zone Linear Ion Trap and Its Ion Alternating Frequency Discrimination and Locking Method

Abstract

The invention discloses a direct-connected three-zone linear ion well and an ion alternating frequency-discrimination locking method thereof. In the realization process of a microwave clock, the ion state preparation and signal detection are completed in a quadrupole well, and the exploration of ions and microwaves are completed in a hexadecapole well; the ions trapped by the ion alternating frequency-discrimination locking method are divided into A and B ion clouds, which are respectively trapped and shuttled between I and II regions of the quadrupole well and the hexadecapole well to finallyrealize ion alternating frequency-discrimination locking. The method provided by the invention can further reduce the second-order Doppler shift caused by the collision and Coulomb repulsion betweenthe ions when the ions and the microwave interact while improving the ionic state preparation efficiency and enhancing the signal detection intensity to improve the signal-to-noise ratio of the microwave clock, and can separately perform good closed electromagnetic shielding and ionic state preparation on the microwave exploration region and perform good optical path design on the signal detectionregion.

Description

technical field [0001] The invention belongs to the field of time-frequency technology, and in particular relates to a direct-connected three-zone linear ion trap and an ion alternating frequency discrimination and locking method thereof. Background technique [0002] In frequency standards using atoms or ions as working substances, factors such as the Doppler effect, Dick effect, signal measurement times, and the free evolution time of ions or atoms in the Ramsey detection process are all important factors affecting the stability of atomic clocks. The currently widely used microwave clock based on single-zone ion trap has two disadvantages. On the one hand, it cannot meet the requirements of low particle number density (to reduce the second-order Doppler effect) and state preparation and The high particle number density required for signal detection (to improve the efficiency of state preparation and the signal-to-noise ratio of signal detection), on the other hand, the sin...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

The currently widely used microwave clock based on single-zone ion trap has two disadvantages. On the one hand, it cannot meet the requirements of low particle number density (to reduce the second-order Doppler effect) and state preparation and The high particle number density required for signal detection (to improve the efficiency of state preparation and the signal-to-noise ratio of signal detection), on the other hand, the single-zone ion trap microwave clock has microwave exploration, state preparation and signal detection in the same In the well region, the existence of optical paths for state preparation and signal detection will affect the design of magnetic shielding for the microwave search process

In addition, microwave clocks based on quadrupole-multipole partitioned ion traps, which have been studied more at present, also have a defect, that is, due to the two processes of microwave exploration and state preparation and signal detection in the ion trap system with this structure It must be carried out sequentially in stages, but not at the same time, which leads to a longer dead time of the microwave clock based on the ion trap structure, and a greater Dick effect. narrow Ramsey fringe width, you will have to reduce the number of signal detections, at the expense of reducing the signal-to-noise ratio of the microwave clock

Images