Spin-1/2 optical lattice clock

Phys Rev Lett. 2009 Aug 7;103(6):063001. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.103.063001. Epub 2009 Aug 3.

Abstract

We experimentally investigate an optical clock based on ;{171}Yb (I = 1/2) atoms confined in an optical lattice. We have evaluated all known frequency shifts to the clock transition, including a density-dependent collision shift, with a fractional uncertainty of 3.4 x 10;{-16}, limited principally by uncertainty in the blackbody radiation Stark shift. We measured the absolute clock transition frequency relative to the NIST-F1 Cs fountain clock and find the frequency to be 518 295 836 590 865.2(0.7) Hz.