On 5/5/13 10:05 AM, Magnus Danielson wrote:
On 05/05/2013 06:50 PM, Jim Lux wrote:
On 5/5/13 8:42 AM, Richard (Rick) Karlquist wrote:
At HP in the 1990's, Len Cutler's group built some experimental
mercury ion standards for USNO (IIRC). They were of the
trapped ion type. BTW, it is important to understand that
the architecture is the key factor, not the flavor of atom.
When people say rubidium is inferior to cesium, they really
mean a gas call is inferior to an atomic beam, etc.
OK, that's interesting..
So the Hg ion they're building for Deep Space Atomic Clock (DSAC) is a
trapped ion type. The whole thing is, as I recall, 1 liter, 1 kilo,
including both the physics package and the electronics.
It's targeting USO type applications.
They have been targeting this goal for a very long time. Several
interesting papers is to be found at PTTI, NIST etc.
Yeah.. some years (6 or 7?) ago, John Prestage had a prototype of the
physics package working on the bench. Getting from there to a repeatably
manufacturable space flight qualified has been a few years. Not to
mention making flight qualified electronics to go around it. I think
the first flight will be next year or the year after as a hosted payload
on something.
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