[time-nuts] Re: Creating a D.I.Y Rubidium Atomic Clock

[Lux, Jim]

On 6/7/23 7:22 AM, Bob Camp via time-nuts wrote:
> Hi
>
> Back when I was with EG&G, they spent a *lot* of effort on the “glassware” side
> of things. It was a major undertaking for a facility that already made vacuum
> tubes.
>
> Was what they did overkill? In the end that was a bit unclear. Their whole “accurate
> dose” gas fill was still being debated years later. That said, you still need some
> way to get a very precise mix into each and every cell.
>
> Bob
>
>> On Jun 6, 2023, at 8:26 PM, Richard Karlquist via time-nuts <time-nuts at lists.febo.com> wrote:
>>
>> In a former life, I was on the design team of a mini rubidium standard
>> at Hewlett-Packard.  We built some working prototypes before it was
>> cancelled.  It was going to have the model number 10816.  I was the RF
>> person, but I worked very closely with the other team members.
>> Remembering what we had to go through to make "glassware", it is
>> inconceivable that you could do that as a "home brew" project.  And this
>> was the same HP facility that already made the 5065 rubidium standard.
>> The best you could hope to do is to start with a commercial "physics
>> package" as we called it, and make your own electronics for it.  Reading
>> books about how rubidium standards work, etc is fine, but again, you
>> can't home brew the glassware.
>>
>> ---
>> Rick Karlquist
>> N6RK

I know a bunch of people on the Cold Atom Lab project, which is making 
Bose Einstein Condensates on ISS - they run both K and Rb (I don't know 
if it's in the same cavity).  But if you need contacts on how they made 
theirs, I can probably find some people to talk to.

That project was described as "take a lab bench full of equipment and 
three post docs and turn it into a box you can take to the space 
station, push a button, and make BECs"Â  It was, as these things are, an 
adventure.