Determining the effects of microwave power and C-field setting on the frequency of a cesium atomic frequency standard
Abstract
In experiments at the United States National Institute of Standards and Technology, Andrea De Marchi showed that there exist optimum values of the C-field setting in a commercial dual-beam cesium frequency standard that make the output frequency insensitive to variations in microwave power. Moreover, and most important, De Marchi demonstrated that the long-term stability of the clock is improved if the C-field is set at one of these optimum settings. To see if these results can be obtained with a clock having a different modulation scheme, the authors, using a completely automated measuring system, performed a similar study on another manufacturer's commercial cesium standard; this standard employed single-beam tube optics and a modulation scheme different from that used by the clocks studied by De Marchi. Our results, similar to those of De Marchi, show that optimum C-field settings exist for the standard we investigated.
- Publication:
-
NASA STI/Recon Technical Report N
- Pub Date:
- December 1989
- Bibcode:
- 1989STIN...9018642K
- Keywords:
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- Atomic Clocks;
- Beams (Radiation);
- Cesium;
- Frequency Stability;
- Frequency Standards;
- Microwaves;
- Optical Measurement;
- Optimization;
- Output;
- Stability;
- Time;
- Electronics and Electrical Engineering