On 4/11/17 12:59 PM, Bob kb8tq wrote:
Hi
Assuming you are doing a “conventional” Rb and Cs there are a number of
differences. There is the sub set of doing a gas cell based on Cs which is
a lot more similar to Rb. With the Cs, you are building a very complicated
vacuum tube that plays with a focused beam of ions traveling in space. With the
Rb you have essentially a couple of odd (Rb based) "neon bulbs" that do some
cute interactions optically. Making light bulbs is easier than making
microwave vacuum tubes. Temperature and magnetic filed mess with both systems
so they need to be controlled in both cases.
The more subtle issue is that we have an implicit expectation of performance
when we talk about an Rb or a Cs. An ADEV of 1x10^-13 at 1,000 seconds is
interesting. An ADEV of 1x10^-9 at 1,000 seconds is not as interesting. Going
from a level of “it works” to the point that it works reasonably well is a
long road with lots of zigs and zags. Teams of people do indeed spend a lot of
time learning where those twists in the road are. In the case of an Rb, a half
dozen people working full time for a decade is probably in the range. For a Cs
both the group size and time frame would be longer. In both cases there is
a “right” mix of skills for the team members, it’s not just a body count.
Not actually building it. I was looking for something I could point
people to that describes (at a high level) what the difference is
between the kinds of references. Just because it says "atomic clock" on
it doesn't mean that they're all the same.
(I can handle explaining why their "atomic" watch isn't really an atomic
standard, unless they're doing the tvb arm exercises approach<grin>)
If there's nothing folks are aware of, I'll probably see if I can find
some nice schematic pictures of a Cs Beam, a gas cell, and an Hg ion
trap, and then a AVAR plot or something.
Bob
On Apr 11, 2017, at 10:30 AM, jimlux <[email protected]> wrote:
I'm looking for a link to point to an explanation (at a basic level) of the
difference between Rb and Cs references, and what the tradeoffs are.
I googled a bit, but all I got were some explanations of the differences in
things like vapor pressure, etc.
Wikipedia (Atomic_clock) has some nice words, but no block diagram of the
innards, which would be nice.
And there's plenty of charts showing the relative performance of Rb and Cs, but
not with any accompanying explanation of why.
I'm looking for something a bit more detailed, but not a 20 page tutorial on
atomic clocks.
Maybe someone has seen something on a manufacturer website or something?
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