Compact two-photon optical clock with a long-term stability of 8.1 × 10−15 without linear drift removal

In this work, we stabilize a 1556.2 nm fiber laser to the 5S1/2 → 5D5/2 two-photon transition in 87Rb in a carefully designed compact physics package. A commercial fiber frequency comb divides the optical frequency into 200 MHz microwave output, which demonstrates a fractional frequency stability of 2.2 × 10−13 at τ = 1 s and 8.1 × 10−15 at τ = 4000 s, without linear drift removal. We analyze the systematic effect on the short-term and long-term stabilities in detail. The short-term and long-term stabilities are limited by shot noise and ac Stark shift, respectively. The rubidium two-photon optical clock is a promising candidate for the next-generation space-borne atomic clock.