Additive manufacturing (AM) of passive microwave components is of high interest for the cost-effective and rapid prototyping or manufacture of devices with complex geometries. Here, we present an experimental study on the properties of recently demonstrated microwave resonator cavities manufactured by AM, in view of their applications to high-performance compact atomic clocks. The microwave cavities employ a loop-gap geometry using six electrodes. The critical electrode structures were manufactured monolithically using two different approaches: Stereolithography (SLA) of a polymer followed by metal coating and Selective Laser Melting (SLM) of aluminum. The tested microwave cavities show the desired TE011-like resonant mode at the Rb clock frequency of ≈6.835 GHz, with a microwave magnetic field highly parallel to the quantization axis across the vapor cell. When operated in an atomic clock setup, the measured atomic Rabi oscillations are comparable to those observed for conventionally manufactured cavitie...

中文翻译：

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用于脉冲光泵浦原子钟应用的增材制造微波腔的研究

无源微波组件的增材制造 (AM) 对具有复杂几何形状的设备的成本效益和快速原型设计或制造具有重要意义。在这里，鉴于它们在高性能紧凑型原子钟中的应用，我们对最近展示的由 AM 制造的微波谐振腔的特性进行了实验研究。微波腔采用环形间隙几何结构，使用六个电极。使用两种不同的方法单片制造关键电极结构：聚合物的立体光刻 (SLA)，然后是金属涂层和铝的选择性激光熔化 (SLM)。测试的微波腔在 ≈6.835 GHz 的 Rb 时钟频率下显示出所需的类似 TE011 的谐振模式，微波磁场高度平行于跨越蒸气室的量化轴。在原子钟装置中运行时，测得的原子 Rabi 振荡与在传统制造的腔体中观察到的振荡相当……