Towards a portable single ion optical clock

Atomic clocks based on optical transitions have been shown to achieve the most precise measurement of time to date, far exceed the current gold standard of microwave atomic clocks. With current capabilities of Microwave clocks starting to bottle neck systems such as global navigation constellations, telecommunications networks and reference systems for scientific research. Optical clocks would allow these systems to continue to develop giving far superior timing solutions. However, current optical clocks have large spatial footprints, high power consumption, and complex operational procedures. For this reason they have yet to be deployed outside of the scientific community. The work in this thesis sets out to address these issues by utilising advancements in fibre optics. The integration of fiber optics allows the spatial footprint to be drastically reduced. Fibers integrated directly into an ion trap eliminates the need for optical windows and the surrounding optics needed for beam delivery, thus also reducing the sensitivity to vibration. Alongside this a highly compact laser system utilising commercial developments in fiber optic components is realised. This laser system contains all the lasers needed to photo- ionise, cool, state detect and quench the ion, all within the volume of four litres. Furthermore this laser system is shown to photo-ionise, cool and quench a trapped ion without active feedback. This is ongoing work towards a portable optical atomic clock housed inside a 4U rack mounted unit.