Portable Microwave Cold Atomic Clock

This topic is eligible for the DARPA Direct to Phase II Pilot Program. Please see section 7.0 of the DARPA instructions for additional information. To be eligible, offerors are required to provide information demonstrating the scientific and technical merit and feasibility of a Phase I project. DARPA will not evaluate the offeror's related Phase II proposal where it determines that the offeror has failed to demonstrate the scientific and technical merit and feasibility of the Phase I project. Offerors must choose between submitting a Phase I proposal OR a Direct to Phase II proposal, and may not submit both for the same topic. OBJECTIVE: Develop a laser-cooled microwave atomic clock with small volume (150 W). DARPA's Chip Scale Atomic Clock (CSAC) program has developed miniature microwave atomic clocks with extremely low SWaP values (S ~ 16 cm^3, W ~ 35 g, P ~ 125 mW) and good short-term stability (10^-10 at 1 sec) [3]. However these clocks drift over long timescales making them unsuitable for many applications. The goal of this SBIR is to bridge the gap between these extremes by developing an atomic frequency standard with long term stability (