Does anyone have information on how exactly a atomic clock works?

[IFNT]

Does anyone have information on how exactly a atomic clock works?
I have had advanced quantum mechanics courses so I am sure I wil understand it.
My problem is that I can't find any descriptive materials (with drawings), the wikipedia page is very vague about the different things.
So can anyone redirect me to online materials or books that explains atomic clocks?

 

[Bill_K]

Is http://www.nist.gov/pml/div688/grp50/primary-frequency-standards.cfm" what you're looking for?

 

[IFNT]

Is http://www.nist.gov/pml/div688/grp50/primary-frequency-standards.cfm" what you're looking for?

Yeah, thanks. But are there sources with more details?

 

[f95toli]

The basic physics of an atomic clock is very simply, the idea is to simp[ly measure the frequency of a transition as accurately as possible and that is about it. There are of course a lot of technical details but you don't need QM to understand those.

There should be quite a few review papers and reports around. Have you tried looking for articles in say Review of Scientic Instruments?
I am sure you can also find info in some Technical reports from NIST and -if you want all the details- papers in Metrologia.

 

[IFNT]

The basic physics of an atomic clock is very simply, the idea is to simp[ly measure the frequency of a transition as accurately as possible and that is about it. There are of course a lot of technical details but you don't need QM to understand those.

There should be quite a few review papers and reports around. Have you tried looking for articles in say Review of Scientic Instruments?
I am sure you can also find info in some Technical reports from NIST and -if you want all the details- papers in Metrologia.

Thank you for your replies.
I am looking into atomic clocks because I want to know how you can use atomic clocks to get a constraint on the variation of e.g. the fine-structure alpha.

 

[IFNT]

The basic physics of an atomic clock is very simply, the idea is to simp[ly measure the frequency of a transition as accurately as possible and that is about it. There are of course a lot of technical details but you don't need QM to understand those.

There should be quite a few review papers and reports around. Have you tried looking for articles in say Review of Scientic Instruments?
I am sure you can also find info in some Technical reports from NIST and -if you want all the details- papers in Metrologia.

I can only find materials on how to measure the transition frequency accurately,
But after you have measured a given transition frequency very accurately, do you then use this frequency to drive an (Rabi) oscillation of the atomic levels? I mean, what does an atomic clock consist of? How do you know how much time has passed?