Phase differences of the fields in a Ramsey resonator for submillimetric frequency standards

The study of an open resonator suitable for standards operating in the submillimeter region, such as Mg and Ca beams and hopefully in the infrared region, is addressed. The structure is obtained by weakly coupling two resonators by means of a very thin splitter. One of the resonators is doubly folded, to allow the Ramsey technique, and it is fed in a nearly symmetric way by the other one. The resonances of the overall structure are studied, as they appear at the input, to distinguish the high excitation from the low excitation ones of the folded resonator. This analysis is firstly performed supposing a lossless structure, then the phase relationships between the two separated fields are evaluated in a few special cases for a real structure.