Atomic Clocks and Coherent Population Trapping: Experiments for Undergraduate Laboratories

We demonstrate how to construct and operate a simple and affordable experimental apparatus, appropriate for an undergraduate setting, in order to produce and study coherent effects in atomic vapor and to investigate their applications for metrology. The apparatus consists of a vertical cavity surface emitting diode laser (VCSEL) directly current-modulated using a tunable microwave oscillator to produce multiple optical fields needed for the observation of the coherent population trapping (CPT). This effect allows very accurate measurement of the transition frequency between two ground state hyperfine sublevels (a "clock transition"), that can be used to construct a CPT-based atomic clock.