An on-chip fully electronic molecular clock based on sub-terahertz rotational spectroscopy
An on-chip fully electronic molecular clock based on sub-terahertz rotational spectroscopy
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DOI：
10.1038/s41928-018-0102-4
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发表时间：
2018-07
影响因子：
34.3
通讯作者：
Cheng Wang;Xiang Yi;James Mawdsley;Mina Kim;Zihan Wang;R. Han
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Cheng Wang;Xiang Yi;James Mawdsley;Mina Kim;Zihan Wang;R. Han
移动电子设备需要稳定、便携和节能的频率基准(或时钟)。然而，目前使用石英晶体振荡器和微电子机械振荡器的方法受到频率漂移的影响。芯片级原子钟探测蒸发的碱原子的超精细跃迁，最近的进展导致了可以克服这一问题的设备，但其复杂的结构、成本和功耗限制了其更广泛的部署。在这里，我们展示了极性气体分子的亚太赫兹旋转跃迁可以作为频率基准来创建低成本、低功耗的小型化时钟。我们报道了两个探测羰基硫化物(16O12C32S)的分子钟，它们是基于实验室规模的仪器和互补的金属氧化物半导体芯片。与芯片级原子钟相比，我们的方法对外部影响不那么敏感，提供了更快的频率误差补偿，并且通过消除碱金属蒸发的需要，提供了更快的启动时间和更低的功耗。我们的工作证明了在主流硅片系统中单片集成原子钟级频率基准的可行性。
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 (16O12C32S), 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.