An on-chip fully electronic molecular clock based on sub-terahertz rotational spectroscopy

被引:40
作者
Wang, Cheng [1 ]
Yi, Xiang [1 ]
Mawdsley, James [1 ]
Kim, Mina [1 ]
Wang, Zihan [1 ]
Han, Ruonan [1 ]
机构
[1] MIT, Dept Elect Engn & Comp Sci, Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
关键词
FREQUENCY STANDARD; TRANSITIONS; RESONANCES;
D O I
10.1038/s41928-018-0102-4
中图分类号
TM [电工技术]; TN [电子技术、通信技术];
学科分类号
0808 ; 0809 ;
摘要
Mobile electronic devices require stable, portable and energy-efficient frequency references (or clocks). However, current approaches using quartz-crystal and microelectromechanical oscillators suffer from frequency drift. Recent advances in chip-scale atomic clocks, which probe the hyperfine transitions of evaporated alkali atoms, have led to devices that can overcome this issue, but their complex construction, cost and power consumption limit their broader deployment. Here we show that sub-terahertz rotational transitions of polar gaseous molecules can be used as frequency bases to create low-cost, low-power miniaturized clocks. We report two molecular clocks probing carbonyl sulfide ((OCS)-O-16-C-12-S-32), which are based on laboratory-scale instruments and complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor chips. Compared with chip-scale atomic clocks, our approach is less sensitive to external influences and offers faster frequency error compensation, and, by eliminating the need for alkali metal evaporation, it offers faster start-up times and lower power consumption. Our work demonstrates the feasibility of monolithic integration of atomic-clock-grade frequency references in mainstream silicon-chip systems.
引用
收藏
页码:421 / 427
页数:7
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