

Time to shrink the atomic clock - crocus
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126994.900-time-to-shrink-the-atomic-clock.html

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jws
Sounds interesting, but I wonder about the accuracy of the article. HP has
made 4U rack mount atomic time sources for years and the GPS satellites all
have atomic clocks on board. The clocks that may be built with this new
technique may be smaller than current ones, but the current clocks can be
smaller than refrigerators.

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tesseract
If this thing isn't even going to be based on cesium, then comparing its size
and expense to a standards-agency fountain clock is a bit unfair. Rubidium
oscillator modules are common and cheap (cell phone base stations tend to be
equipped with them) and pretty small (Symmetricom's smallest module is I think
about 2" square).

Anyway, I'm curious how well the frequency stability of this thing can compare
to tube-based atomic clocks.

