We present the mechanism of coherent population trapping (CPT) atom clock. The optical system is designed for a portable CPT atom clock. In this system, single transverse mode vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser is used as a miniature pump laser. The driven circuit is designed based on a field-programmable gate array full digital control system and special-purpose chip MAX1968. The experimental results show that the optical system can provide circularly polarized light, and has small volume and low power consumption. These indi-cate that the optical system is a promising candidate for a portable CPT atom clock engineering prototype.