国外空间原子钟发展研究

Research on Development of Space Atomic Clock

空间原子钟包括磁选态原子钟、脉冲光抽运原子钟、相干布居囚禁原子钟、离子阱原子钟和冷原子钟。文章介绍了这5类空间原子钟的发展情况,其中:磁选态原子钟是当前卫星导航系统广泛采用的空间原子钟;脉冲光抽运原子钟已经在美国GPS-3卫星上应用;相干布居囚禁原子钟是脉冲光抽运原子钟的一种特例,其优势在于体积小、质量小、功耗低;离子阱原子钟具有很高的精度,目前其天稳定度已经达到10^(-17);冷原子钟基于近绝对零度下原子的物理特性和量子光学测量技术,具有极高的准确度和稳定度,发展与应用前景广阔。分析了空间原子钟的发展趋势,如激光冷却、量子频率光学测量与环境控制,将成为空间原子钟发展的支撑性关键技术。针对我国空间原子钟的发展现状和技术水平,提出了挖掘现有原子钟潜力、瞄准原子钟前沿技术等建议。

The space atomic clock includes magnetically selected atomic clock,pulsed optically pumped atomic clock,coherent population trapping atomic clock,ion atomic clock and cold atomic clock.This paper introduces the development of these five kinds of space atomic clocks.The magnetically selected atomic clock is widely used in the current satellite navigation system.The pulsed optically pumped atomic clock has been used for the GPS-3 satellites.The coherent population trapping atomic clock is a kind of special case of pulsed optically pumped atomic clock with the advantages of small size,light weight and low consumption.The ion atomic clock has high accuracy and its current days of stability is 10^(-17).Based on physical characteristics under near absolute zero cold and quantum optical measurement technology,the cold atomic clock has high accuracy and stability therefore has good development and application prospects.The deve-lopment trends of space atomic clock are analyzed such that laser cooling,quantum optical mea-surement and environmental control will become the key technologies for future development of space atomic clock.In view of the development of space atomic clock in China,some suggestions are put forward such as mining the potential of atomic clock,research and development advanced atomic clock technology.