Initial Evaluation of the USNO Rubidium Fountain

Abstract

We discuss the first rubidium atomic fountain at the U. S. Naval Observatory, NRF1, which has been built as a prototype for future devices to be included in the USNO timescale. The system has demonstrated a short-term Allan deviation of 1.35 10 (-13) over tau(1/2) when measured against a hydrogen maser. We have directly compared NRF1's performance to that of our cesium fountain, NCF, demonstrating integration as 1 over tau(1/2) below 1 10(-15), and performance that is consistent with 7 10(-16) at 11 hours.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 2006
Accession Number
ADA457741

Entities

People

  • C. R. Ekstrom
  • S. Crane
  • Steven Peil
  • T. Swanson

Organizations

  • United States Naval Observatory

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Advanced Electronics

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Abstracts
  • Atomic Beam Masers
  • Elements
  • Frequency
  • Frequency Synthesizers
  • Hydrogen
  • Information Operations
  • Magnetic Fields
  • Masers
  • Measurement
  • Optoisolators
  • Oscillators
  • Phase
  • Phase Modulation
  • Rubidium
  • Test And Evaluation
  • Vacuum Chambers

Readers

  • Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) Technology.