Author Description

"Clocks are one of humanity's oldest and most remarkable inventions, now defining virtually our entire system of measurement. Today, optical clocks are so precise, they lose less than a second over the entire age of the universe, and performances continue to improve rapidly. All these clocks rely on ultra-stable optical cavities and highly forbidden atomic transitions to achieve their incredible accuracy.A new approach, based on superradiance, could dramatically simplify this technology by using atoms to emit light directly and create clocks that are a million times less sensitive to external disturbances. This breakthrough could help to bring optical clocks out of the lab and enable real-world applications. Their impact could be felt from applied physics predicting earthquakes or improving GPS accuracy to expanding fundamental science, such as probing for dark matter and the universe. In this thesis, I describe the development of two approaches aimed at demonstrating the first continuous active optical clock, each targeting different regimes. Both use strontium to achieve superradiant lasing. The first approach involves a hot atomic beam machine with a kHz-wide transition, designed for rugged industrial timekeeping. The second uses an ultracold atomic system with a mHz-wide transition, aiming for the ultimate active optical clock, one that will define a new state-of-the-art in precision measurement."--