What are Rubidium Oscillators?
Rubidium oscillators are one of the most precise time standards known to the electronics world. As a basic unit, a rubidium clock is nothing but a crystal oscillator locked to an atomic reference. One part of the rubidium oscillator is a high-quality quartz crystal-based oven-controlled oscillator (OCXO), which creates the output signal, while another part is the rubidium “physics-package”, that provides the timing accuracy to control the OCXO frequency. Any Rubidium oscillator is prepared with high degree of stability, this guarantees a greater hold-over period during the unavailability of an input references. Greater hold-over period in turn accounts for a product to offer precise and optimum time stamps. Therefore, maintaining a 10 MHz output for a longer period of time once the oscillator has lost the time synchronization.
How does a rubidium oscillator work?
Another term that might have struck our eyes is the “physics-package”. So, what is this term? Physics package is the core of rubidium atomic frequency standards. The physics package consists of a chamber of rubidium gas. Within that chamber, a light is radiated through the gas and the level of this light is analyzed. The rubidium gas hence reaches the excited phase by microwave energy at the transition frequency of the gas. This causes the energy of the gas to transit from one level to another. Further during this change in energy level, a depression in the light level occurs. This depression in light is monitored and analyzed. This detection is basically measuring the oscillation in energy levels. Thus, a rubidium physics package serves by producing an error signal that varies in magnitude and detect the difference in frequency between the applied microwave excitation and the atomic resonance. The error signal is a result of a frequency applied to the microwave excitation, which causes variations in the transmission of light through the resonance cell.
Why use a rubidium oscillator?
Rubidium oscillators have a number of advantages over other atomic devices, such as caesium clocks. Rubidium clocks are lower cost, small and therefore more portable. A rubidium oscillator offers better short-term stability and frequency accuracy, which translates into better signal integrity and co-channel interference. Phase noise, that relates to jitter in the digital world, is much better for these oscillators when compared to a standard oscillators used in a GPS receiver. Rubidium also offers a low aging rate of IE-9 over a 10-year period, which accounts for less than 1Hz of drift over 10 years for a typical 840 MHz UHF transmitter. Therefore, responsible for a critical improvement in terms of performance over OCXOs.
everything RF has listed Rubidium oscillators from the leading companies and made them searchable by specification. Use the filters to narrow down on Rubidium oscillators based on your requirement. View product details, compare products, download datasheets and get quotes on products that meet your requirement.
