SPIN-EXCHANGE-PUMPED HE-3 AND XE-129 ZEEMAN MASERS

Steady-state noble gas Zeeman masers operating with He-3 and Xe-129 ha ve been realized by spin exchange with laser optically pumped Rb. Thes e masers can operate continuously for arbitrary lengths of time. For m easurement intervals tau = 1000 to 10000 s, frequency measurement prec ision for a phase locked Xe-129 maser is shown to be better than 1 x 1 0(-2)tau-3/2 Hz. Startup transients are used to study gain characteris tics. In a two-cell setup maser conditions for both species can be opt imized allowing a wide array of precision measurements.