News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Atomic Clocks Make a Quantum Leap in Accuracy.

Re:Atomic Clocks Make a Quantum Leap in Accuracy by qianyilong on Tuesday January 28, 2014 @04:38PM (#7139930)
The coolest part it that it improves both stability and accuracy. Cesium is often touted as a good clock but it only has good accuracy. The short-term stability has more noise than something like a Rubidium clock that is very stable on the short-term but inaccurate(relative to cesium anyway) on the long term.

This is cool because it is the best in both dimensions.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Atomic Clocks Make a Quantum Leap in Accuracy by madengr on Tuesday January 28, 2014 @05:15PM (#7140170)
The phase noise (really short term stability) of a rubidium oscillator is rather poor compared to on ovenized quartz oscillator. So what I really want is a strontium disciplined OCXO.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Atomic Clocks Make a Quantum Leap in Accuracy by mjb on Tuesday January 28, 2014 @07:31PM (#7140906)
Years ago I was involved in some work on clocks that needed very high performance at low cost. We ended up with OCXOs GPS-disciplined over some of their frequency and atomic clock disciplined (cesium, IIRC) over another part of the range.

Telling the time is hard.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Atomic Clocks Make a Quantum Leap in Accuracy by madengr on Tuesday January 28, 2014 @08:00PM (#7141041)
Cool. I bought a couple of HP Z3801A recently for home lab use. Also have an Arbiter GPS disciplined clock at work as a frequency standard for my RF equipment; they use one of the Wenzel OCXOs that has the lowest phase noise you can buy.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Atomic Clocks Make a Quantum Leap in Accuracy by prateekj on Tuesday January 28, 2014 @05:22PM (#7140218)
True! People use Rubidium clocks only because they are inexpensive. I don't think scientists working in expensive labs rely on Rubidium clocks.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Atomic Clocks Make a Quantum Leap in Accuracy by adamlaiacano on Tuesday January 28, 2014 @06:23PM (#7140573)
Some Rubidium clocks require very little power (700mW or less). This makes them ideal for under water applications where short term accuracy isn't an issue because the SONAR data transmission is going to be a mess anyway, and they provide much better long term stability than a crystal oscillator.
[ Parent | on HN ]