Frequency-Stability Performances of the Pulsed Optically Pumped Rubidium Clock: Recent Results and Future Perspectives

This paper presents new results obtained with a laboratory prototype of a pulsed optically pumped frequency standard based on a vapor cell containing ⁸⁷Rb diluted in a buffer gas. A frequency stability of about 1.2 10^-12 tau^- has been measured, and the value of 3 10^-15 for integration times of 10⁵ s has been achieved (drift removed data). These performances show that a suitable implementation of this standard can lead to a compact vapor-cell clock with a very interesting short- and medium-term frequency stability and, consequently, may be of great interest in radio-navigation systems. We also present some possible improvements of the pulsed technique