Improving Optical Lattice Clock Stability by Quantifying EMCCD Camera's Noise Sources

The EMCCD (electron-multiplying charge coupled device) camera has found widespread use in a variety of fields from developmental biology, to astronomy and optical physics. The various sources of noise, including readout noise, dark current, and clock induced noise, and their contribution to the total noise of the camera can be characterized in order to find the total Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) of the camera. Through investigation and analysis of a variety of parameters of the camera's use (light source, exposure time, gain, and temperature) the camera setup that yields the highest value of SNR can be chosen for the given experimental setup, leading to more accurate and precise experimental results. These analyses will ultimately serve the goal of improving the noise within the collected fluorescence spectroscopy data of a strontium clock experiment through replacement of the current EMCCD camera. Improvements in the strontium clock means improvements in many related areas that heavily rely on the precise measurement of time, such as GPS systems, space travel, and overall ability to measure new phenomena.