[time-nuts] Temperature controlled TCVCXO

David davidwhess at gmail.com
Fri May 13 08:15:00 UTC 2016


Has anybody tried using a thermoelectric cooler to maintain a TCVCXO
at a constant temperature in lieu of using an OCXO?

I was thinking about this after reading some application notes in
connection with constant temperature control using TECs with bipolar
drive.  The power required would be pretty low so I think a linear
control circuit could be used avoiding the noise problems associated
with a switching controller.  Temperature sensor placement would be a
challenge.

I suppose as part of an automated calibration, the temperature could
be adjusted over a few degrees from ambient to find any flat spots in
the oscillator's ppm/C curve.

One place I have run across this application of TECs is with laser
diodes where coherence length depends on very tight temperature
control.  Typical laser diodes without temperature control have a
coherence length of millimeters making them useless in more demanding
applications like interferometry.



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