[time-nuts] Sapphire oscillators

[Alex Pummer]

there was another sapphire oscillator company:

Industry News 
<http://www.microwavejournal.com/topics/3369-industry-news>/ Test and 
Measurement Channel 
<http://www.microwavejournal.com/topics/3449-test-and-measurement-channel>


  A Mobile Ultra-low Phase Noise Sapphire Oscillator


        Introduction to a low noise fixed-frequency X-band sapphire
        cavity oscillator

Poseidon Scientific Instruments Pty Ltd.
<http://www.microwavejournal.com/authors/888-poseidon-scientific-instruments-pty-ltd>
Fremantle WA  near Perth
January 1, 2002

http://www.microwavejournal.com/articles/3367-a-mobile-ultra-low-phase-noise-sapphire-oscillator

They were acquired, the produced shoe-box size  oscillators ready for 
industrial/military application ...A self-confessed alternative guy from 
Fremantle has sold the world-leading high technology firm he founded 24 
years ago to global defense giant Raytheon.....

73

KJ6UHN

Alex


On 11/9/2016 4:48 PM, Attila Kinali wrote:
> On Thu, 10 Nov 2016 11:20:37 +1100
> Jim Palfreyman <jim77742 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Anyone got any comments on this?
>>
>> http://www.theleadsouthaustralia.com.au/industries/technology/worlds-most-precise-clock-set-for-commercial-countdown/
> Cryogenic sapphire or whispering gallery mode oscillators have been around
> for quite some time. You basically have a piece of sapphire (aluminium oxide
> in crystaline form)[1] in a cavity[2,3], cool everything down to liquid
> helium temperatures and use this as an oscillator. There are two popular
> configurations, one is to use the sapphire as resonant element like in
> an LC or crystal oscillator, or more commonly, to use the sapphire as a
> filter element in Pound locking scheme[4].
>
> The short term stability of these oscillators is AFAIK unsurpassed
> and flat up to 1000-10'000s, but exhibits drift at longer taus[5].
>
> Their biggest problem is that they need a liquid helium cryo-cooler
> which causes vibrations that need to be carefully filtered out.
> This also makes them relatively large (fill between one and two 19" racks)
>
>
> 			Attila Kinali
>
> [1] http://www.uliss-st.com/uploads/pics/tech2.jpg
> [2] http://inspirehep.net/record/1244235/files/cavity.png
> [3] http://www.uliss-st.com/uploads/media/imgmedias.jpg
> [4] That's the (original) microwave variant of the Pound-Drever-Hall
> locking scheme, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pound%E2%80%93Drever%E2%80%93Hall_technique
> [5] http://inspirehep.net/record/1409150/plots