Ultra-Stable Laser Clock.
Abstract
The Air Force has a requirement for a high accuracy Helium-Neon Ring Laser Gyro (RLG) and a high accuracy clock. The author has devised a method (patent applied for) whereby a multi-oscillator RLG can be used simultaneously as a gyro and as a clock. The device uses a multi-frequency laser oscillator with an auxiliary detector to sense a 583 MHz beat frequency and necessary electronics to produce a 5 MHz clock signal. The experiment was conducted at the Sudbury, Massachusetts plant of Raytheon Corporation. The square root of the Allan variance was measured for several different sample times. The best data obtained, for the given times, was 4.6 X 10 to the minus 10th power for 1 msec, 3.4 X 10 to the minus 10th power for 10 msec, 8.7 X 10 to the minus 11th power for 0.1 sec, 1.6 X 10 to the minus 10th power for 1 sec, 4.5 X 10 to the minus 10th power for 10 sec, and 4.8 X 10 to the minus 9th power for 100 sec. The data was quantum limited from 1 msec to 200 msec. The long-term degradation was caused by a drift in the Faraday rotator. A method for correcting the Faraday rotator drift is suggested. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 01, 1983
- Accession Number
- ADA127519
Entities
People
- Roger Lee Facklam
Organizations
- Air Force Institute of Technology