Laser diode optically pumped cesium beam frequency standard investigations at LHA

Summary form only given. Investigations of the laser-diode optically pumped cesium beam resonator are discussed. The basic atomic resonator operates with a switched-capacitor laser diode tuned to either the D/sub 1/ or D/sub 2/ cesium line at 894 and 852 nm, respectively. The optical transitions that give the highest clock signal amplitude are found to be sensitive to the Hanle effect. The optical pumping efficiency as well as the fluorescence yield decrease when the static magnetic field is too low in the light atom interaction regions. An efficient optically pumped cesium beam resonator having three magnetic field regions has been designed. When it operates with a commercially available laser diode tuned on the 3 to 3 sigma transition at 852 nm, it exhibits an S/N ratio=2*10/sup 4/ in 1-Hz bandwidth, leading to a measured short-term frequency stability of 2*10/sup -12// square root tau . The influence of the anisotropic character of the fluorescence light on the collection efficiency of the fluorescence light in the detection region has also been investigated. Preliminary investigations of the statistical properties of the fluorescence signal and their dependence on the different noise sources have been carried out.<>