G. John Dick

Cryocooled sapphire oscillator with ultrahigh stability

We present test results and design details for the first short-term frequency standard to achieve ultrahigh stability without the use of liquid helium. With refrigeration provided by a commercial cryocooler, the compensated sapphire oscillator (10 K CSO) makes available the superior short-term stability and phase noise performance of cryogenic oscillators without periodic interruptions for cryogen replacement. Technical features of the 10 K CSO include use of a two-stage cryocooler with vibration isolation by helium gas at atmospheric pressure, and a new sapphire/ruby resonator design giving compensated operation at 8 K to 10 K with Q=(1-2)/spl times/10/sup 9/. Stability of the first unit shows an Allan deviation of /spl sigma//sub y//spl les/2.5/spl times/10/sup -15/ for measuring times of 200 s/spl les//spl tau//spl les/600 s. We also present results showing the capability of the 10 K CSO to eliminate local oscillator degradation for atomic frequency standards. Configured as local oscillator (L.O.) for the LITS-7 trapped mercury ion frequency standard, the CSO/LITS combination demonstrated a limiting performance of 3.0/spl times/10/sup -14///spl tau//sup 1/2/, the lowest value measured to date for a passive atomic frequency standard, and virtually identical to the value calculated from photon statistics.

Miniature Sapphire Acoustic Resonator (MSAR)

We present recent progress towards a Miniature Sapphire Acoustic Resonator (MSAR). Our goal is to develop an ultra-stable oscillator with a high Q room temperature sapphire resonator and low noise Quartz electronics with a stability better than 1×10⁻¹⁴ @ 1s. Specific experimental plans are to demonstrate a high Q (≫1×10⁸) sapphire acoustic resonator at room temperature in bulk acoustic modes near 5 or 10MHz. Initial acoustic resonator studies are being carried out with both Sapphire (Al<inf>2</inf>O<inf>3</inf>) and Calcium Fluoride (CaF<inf>2</inf>).