[time-nuts] CS reservoir depletion

Chuck Harris cfharris at erols.com
Thu Jan 13 12:31:58 UTC 2011


I suppose that would be possible if a C beam standard worked like a rubidium
reference, but alas, they are different in virtually all respects.

Think of the C beam as having a small kettle full of cesium that is put
on a low simmer.  The kettle keeps the cesium molten, and bubbling up minute
amounts of cesium vapor.

How are you going to refill the kettle when it lives in the middle of
a hard vacuum chamber?  The best you could do with your technique (assuming
it is even possible) is to coat the walls of the vacuum chamber with cesium...

Kind of like trying to fill the gas tank by hosing the car down with gasoline.

Besides, if HP can be believed, the kettle never runs out of cesium before
the receiving end of the tube gets completely choked on waste cesium metal.
That waste cesium needs to be removed, and the electron multiplier needs to
be restored, at a minimum.... and the ion pump is probably full up too.

-Chuck Harris

Neville Michie wrote:
> It may not be necessary to open a tube to renew the supply of an alkali
> metal.
> I remember an experiment where an incandescent light bulb was dipped
> into molten sodium chloride in an iron vessel.
> The filament was run and a voltage between the filament and the iron
> vessel caused sodium ions to migrate through the glass
> into the bulb. Sodium accumulated in the bulb.
> It is obviously a slow process, but then you did not need to put much Cs
> in the bulb.
>
> Why not use it to recharge an alkali metal lamp?
>
> cheers, Neville Michie




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