Eli5: mechanically speaking. How does an atomic clock work and where do they store the atoms to use it

Question

I saw a YouTube short about atomic clocks and no where I look do they explain how the scientist store atoms to use for the clock. This topic fascinates me and I’m just curious

In: 4

Answer 1

> how the scientist store atoms to use for the clock

Well the entire clock and the table it’s on is made of atoms, it’s not as much of a challenge as you might think. It’s not exactly antimatter that would annihilate itself and whatever it touches in a spectacular boom, or some plasma that must be kept at a temperature that would vaporize the container itself.

For a Cs133 clock it’s just a little can of cesium-133 that gets slowly boiled into a gas with a heating element. For a Rubidium clock, it’s a little “neon” lamp bulb filled with gaseous rubidium (and often some other noble gas, usually argon or xeon and not neon) that microwaves are aimed at. [It’s the small blue glowing glass thing in the center of the second image](https://www.thinksrs.com/products/prs10.html)