Measuring time: quantifying modern clocks and oscillators

Overview

From Galileo’s early mechanics experiments with pendulum clocks to Harrison’s breakthrough solution to the longitude measurement problem with marine chronometers, clocks and oscillators have played a significant role throughout history. With precision clocks and oscillators embedded in innumerable critical modern systems, these devices are just as important to physics and engineering today as they were hundreds of years ago. The most famous modern application is the ubiquitous Global Positioning System (GPS), which relies on an ensemble of high-performance clocks in space. 

The characteristics of oscillators and clocks influence the overall performance of the system into which they are embedded. As such, having the right instruments and procedures to fully characterize each aspect is essential in determining whether a particular measurement device is the right fit. Reconfigurable devices enable end-to-end oscillator characterization with intuitive data visualization and fully integrated digital signal processing. For example, an FPGA-based phasemeter can perform real-time, on-device Allan deviation and power spectral density measurements without post-processing.

In this webinar, special guest speaker Professor Andre Luiten, Chair of Experimental Physics at the University of Adelaide and Managing Director of QuantX Labs, teams up with Liquid Instruments to introduce various oscillator characteristics, analyze the relationships between them, and dive deeper into how they are measured and quantified.

A live Q&A follows the presentation. For detailed answers to audience questions — including how to measure low-SNR signals, why cross-correlation can improve phase noise measurement, and how deadtime affects oscillator measurements — check out our blog.

Webinar details

• Title: Measuring time: quantifying modern clocks and oscillators
  
• Date recorded: August 13, 2024
• Speakers: Jessica Patterson, Andre Luiten