Cryo-cooled sapphire oscillator for the Cassini Ka-band experiment

Author

Dick, G. John ; Wang, Rabi T.

Author_Institution

Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Technol., Pasadena, CA, USA

fYear

1997

fDate

28-30 May 1997

Firstpage

1009

Lastpage

1014

Abstract

We present design aspects of a cryogenic sapphire oscillator which is being developed for ultra-high short term stability and low phase noise in support of the Cassini Ka-band Radio Science experiment. With cooling provided by a commercial cryocooler instead of liquid helium, this standard is designed to operate continuously for periods of a year or more. Performance targets are a stability of 3×10^-15 (1 second⩽τ⩽100 seconds) and a phase noise of -73 dB/Hz @ 1 Hz measured at 34 GHz. Test results are reported for several subsystems; including cryocooler, vibration isolation system, and ruby compensating element

Keywords

circuit stability; compensation; cryogenic electronics; millimetre wave oscillators; phase noise; sapphire; space vehicle electronics; 34 GHz; Al₂O₃; Cassini Ka-band experiment; cryo-cooled oscillator; phase noise; ruby compensating element; sapphire oscillator; ultra-high short term stability; vibration isolation system; Cooling; Cryogenics; Degradation; Frequency; Laboratories; Oscillators; Phase noise; Propulsion; Stability; Temperature;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Frequency Control Symposium, 1997., Proceedings of the 1997 IEEE International

Conference_Location

Orlando, FL

Print_ISBN

0-7803-3728-X

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/FREQ.1997.639224

Filename

639224