Potential for improving the rubidium frequency standard with a novel optical pumping scheme using diode lasers

Abstract

Frequency stability of a Rubidium FrequencyStandard (RFS) is directly related to the signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) of the microwave-induced (6834 MHz) optical signal which is proportional to the fractional atomic population difference between the two MF=O ground state sublevels of *' Rb. In the present RFSs this fractional population difference is small (<l%).