The effect of humidity on commercial cesium beam atomic clocks

Author

Gray, James E. ; Machlan, Howard E. ; Allan, David W.

Author_Institution

Time & Frequency Div., Boulder, CO, USA

fYear

1988

Firstpage

514

Lastpage

518

Abstract

Control of humidity is studied in one of the environmental chambers for the NBS cesium beam clock ensemble. The relative humidity was changed from a few percent to 48%. All of the clocks underwent a change in frequency. The resulting frequency changes were of different sign and of varying magnitudes among the clocks. In some, the changes were an order of magnitude larger than the flicker noise FM levels associated with the corresponding clocks. The implications of such changes are quite significant in the generation of International Atomic Time (TAI) and of Universal Coordinated Time (UCT). The possibility of annual variations in the time scales of the principal timing centers as well as in TAI and UTC is discussed

Keywords

atomic beams; atomic clocks; caesium; humidity; measurement standards; Cs beam clock; International Atomic Time; NBS; Universal Coordinated Time; atomic clock; environmental chambers; flicker noise; humidity control; measurement standard; relative humidity; time scales; timing centers; 1f noise; Atomic clocks; Capacitive sensors; Frequency conversion; Frequency estimation; Humidity control; Manufacturing; NIST; Stability; Timing;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Frequency Control Symposium, 1988., Proceedings of the 42nd Annual

Conference_Location

Baltimore, MD

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/FREQ.1988.27649

Filename

27649