A CPT-based Cs vapor cellatomic clock with a short-term fractional frequency stability of 3 x 10(-13) tau(-1/2)

This article reports on the development and short-term fractional frequency stability of a continuous-regime (CW) Cs vapor cell atomic clock based on coherent population trapping (CPT). The push-pull optical pumping technique is used to increase the number of atoms that participate to the clock transition, yielding a typical CPT resonance contrast of 25 % for a CPT linewidth of about 450 Hz. The clock short-term fractional frequency stability is measured to be 3 x 10(-13) tau(-1/2) up to 100 seconds averaging time, in correct agreement with the signal-to-noise ratio limit. The mid-term frequency stability results are currently mainly limited by laser power effects. The detection of high-contrast narrow Raman-Ramsey fringes is demonstrated with this setup by making the atoms interact with a light pulse sequence.