NPL Cs fountain frequency standards and the quest for the ultimate accuracy

NPL operates a system of two primary caesium fountain clocks consisting of a fully characterised standard NPL-CsF2 together with a new standard NPL-CsF3, which has recently become operational. Both fountains feature a single-stage vapour-loaded magneto-optical trap as the source of cold atoms and an approximate cancellation of the potentially large cold collision frequency shift. As a result, the collision-shift type-B uncertainty is less than 10. Subsequently, more subtle systematic effects, including the frequency shifts from distributed cavity phase, microwave lensing and collisions with background gas have also been evaluated at the level of 10 or below. Now, as several systematic effects contribute to the fountains’ uncertainty budgets similarly, further significant improvement of their accuracies is expected to be even more difficult. The short-term stability of these standards is also a significant factor limiting the overall precision as many days or even weeks of averaging is required for the type-A statistical uncertainty to approach the declared type-B systematic uncertainty. Going forward, further improvements in the reliability and robustness of operation of fountain standards is one of our priorities.