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NPL Primary Frequency
Standards: current status
K. Szymaniec, S. N. Lea, A. Acharya
*
National Physical Laboratory, Teddington, UK *National Physical Laboratory India, New Delhi, India
Email: ks1@npl.co.uk
Summary
At the National Physical Laboratory, a system of primary frequency
standards (PFS) is being developed with the aims of:
quasi-continuous calibration of the duration of the step interval of
the international time scales UTC and TAI
provision of stable reference and steering parameters for the local
representation of UTC maintained by NPL
absolute frequency measurements of optical and microwave
atomic frequency standards being developed as secondary
representations of the second
The NPL PFS system consists of two caesium fountains:
NPL-CsF2 operational since 2009, fully characterised and approved by
CCTF as PFS
NPL-CsF3 operational since 2014, currently undergoing optimisation and
accuracy evaluation
A microwave synthesizer based on an optical frequency comb referenced
to an ultra-stable laser is also being developed to replace the existing
quartz local oscillator.
References
[1] K. Szymaniec, W. Chalupczak, E. Tiesinga, C.J. Williams, S. Weyers, R. Wynands, Cancellation of the collisional frequency shift in caesium
fountain clocks, Phys. Rev. Lett. 98 (2007) 153002
[2] K. Szymaniec, H.R. Noh, S.E Park and A Takamizawa, Spin polarisation in a freely evolving sample of cold atoms, Appl. Phys.
B 111 (2013) 527-535
[3] R. Li, K. Gibble, K. Szymaniec, Improved accuracy of the NPL-CsF2 primary frequency standard: evaluation of distributed cavity phase
and microwave lensing frequency shifts, Metrologia 48 (2011) 283-289
[4] K. Szymaniec, S. N. Lea and K. Liu, An evaluation of the frequency shift due to collisions with background gas in the primary frequency
standard NPL-CsF2, IEEE Trans. UFFC 61 (2014) 203-206
[5] K. Gibble, S. N. Lea, K. Szymaniec, A microwave cavity designed to minimize distributed cavity phase errors in a primary cesium
frequency standard, Conference on Precision Electromagnetic Measurements (2012) 700701
HROGUTC(NPL)
H-maser HM2
Users
NPL-CsF2
To optical clocks
9.2 GHz
NPL-CsF3
Ultra-stable
laser
10 MHz
Frequency corrections (daily)
Universal
synthesizer
(fs comb)
Uncertainty budget of NPL-CsF2

Type B evaluation Uncertainty / 10
-16
Efect
Second order Zeeman 0.8
Blackbody radiation 1.1
AC Stark (lasers) 0.1
Microwave spectrum 0.1
Gravity 0.5
Cold collisions (Cs-Cs) 0.4
Collisions with background gas 0.3
Rabi, Ramsey pulling 0.1
Cavity phase (distributed) 1.1
Cavity phase (dynamic) 0.1
Cavity pulling 0.2
Microwave leakage 0.6
Microwave lensing (recoil) 0.3
Second-order Doppler 0.1
u
B
(1) 2.0
Type A evaluation
u
A
(1, for 15-day averaging) 2.4
Total uncertainty 3.1
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to Kun Liu and Przemysaw Gowacki for
their contributions to the development of NPL-CsF3.
Funds are acknowledged from the UK National Measurement Ofce.
NPL-CsF2 performance
Short-term stability: 2.8 x 10
-13
(1s)
0.9 x 10
-15
(1 day)
2.5 x 10
-16
(2 weeks)
Accuracy (long-term) 2.0 x 10
-16
Reliability (MTBF) 33 days
Active time (over one year)
(ignoring scheduled breaks of <0.5 day)
83%
90%
Contributions to TAI steering
time covered
52
1190 days
Timescale generation & PFS system
The caesium fountain
NPL-CsF2 features:
simple single stage
vapour loaded MOT
as cold atom source
collisional frequency
shift cancellation
[1]
optical pumping
to the m
F
= 0 clock
state, resulting in a
fve-fold increase in
the detected atomic
signal
[2]
type B uncertainty
reduced below
2 x 10
-16
following
improved
evaluation of the
distributed cavity
phase (DCP) shift
[3]

and background gas
collisional (BGC)
shift
[4]

First Ramsey fringes
observed in the CsF3
apparatus with S/N 600;
improvement of the S/N
ratio is expected after
implementation
of optical pumping
to m
F
= 0 state,
stabilisation detection
beams intensities,
optimisation of the
cooling sequence etc.
A second caesium fountain, NPL-CsF3, has recently been assembled and made
operational. Its design is similar to and it incorporates many features of
NPL-CsF2; the major novelty being a new microwave cavity designed to
minimize the DCP shift
[5]
.
Note the suppressionof sidebands inthe Ramsey patternaway fromthe resonance.
This is due tothe modifedshape of the cavity andhence the temporal shape of the
Ramsey pulse (the signal for CsF2 shownfor comparison).
52 contributions
covering 1190 days
were made to date,
which allows a viable
statistical analysis to be
performed.
Above: NPL-CsF2
contributions to the
TAI steering process by
BIPM since 2009. d is
the deviation of TAI step
interval (or frequency
with opposite sign) from
that of TT (representing
the SI second on geoid);
data taken from Circular
T publications.
Below: diference in
frequency between
NPL-CsF2 standard
and TT.
Alan deviation
(calculated for the
quiet period of the
recent 3 years) shows
consistency with
the declared type B
uncertainty of 2 x 10
-16
.
C-feld homogeneity:
Position of the central
Ramsey fringe
(m
F
=1 - m
F
=1 transition)
as a function of the
fountain height (toss
above MOT); the centre
of the Ramsey cavity
is placed 65 cm above
MOT.