A strontium lattice clock with 3 × 10-17 inaccuracy and its frequency

Abstract

We have measured the absolute frequency of the optical lattice clock based on 87Sr at PTB with an uncertainty of 3.9 × 10-16 using two caesium fountain clocks. This is close to the accuracy of todays best realizations of the SI second. The absolute frequency of the 5 s2 1S 0 - 5s5p 3P 0 transition in 87Sr is 429 228 004 229 873.13(17) Hz. Our result is in excellent agreement with recent measurements performed in different laboratories worldwide. We improved the total systematic uncertainty of our Sr frequency standard by a factor of five and reach 3 × 10-17, opening new prospects for frequency ratio measurements between optical clocks for fundamental research, geodesy or optical clock evaluation. © 2014 IOP Publishing Ltd and Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft.