Strontium optical lattice clocks

In optical lattice clocks, an ensemble of cold neutral atoms confined in a lattice-shaped dipole trap are probed by an ultrastable laser. They have recently become the best frequency references, because they combine a narrow atomic resonance in the optical domain – hence a large quality factor – and a large number of simultaneously probed atoms. In this paper, we present the latest developments of these clocks, both in terms of frequency stability and accuracy, by focusing on two strontium optical lattice clocks under operation at LNE-SYRTE.