On 27/09/11 21:46, Poul-Henning Kamp wrote:
In message<CAP6i9MmntLTia=XXUafbyrp+e3=koc1TRSEvL=g05emepq4...@mail.gmail.com>
, brent evers writes:
So at its most basic, I'm wondering what type of clock would make the
most sense to consider - cesium fountain, or hydrogen maser?
Based on what I can gather, a fountain is probably easier to make work
than any of the other, from a pure _mechanical_ point of view.
The important detail to remember here, is that the people who have
built fountains so far, have all tried to get better performance
than very mature hydrogen masers and high performance cesiums.
If your goal is simply to make "something that works" you probably don't
need 4 separate shields, niobium surface etc.
That said, it's probably not a one weekend task.
A small starter would be a rubidium. Getting the glas-work with rubidium
isotopes might be the show-stopper unless you work on it.
A cesium beam (or any other beam) would be possible, but require a bit
more work and preparations. If we talk about getting it to work level
then getting the selector magnets working properly might be a bit
troublesome. Most other things should be doable for a handy mechanics
with a good toolshop. Getting good performance would meet many
challenges, but a "working" beam should be possible at least.
A hydrogen maser would be possible if you can tool such large
structures. The glaswork might be a challenge and also the magnet assembly.
A fountain would be a nice challenge, and the physical package would be
possible. It would take some effort to build the optical stuff and get
it to work well. The RF section should be simpler than the beam designs.
A variant which might be of interest is ion traps. Should not need that
complex mechanics even if it has some challenges.
Trying to approach any of these would require reading up on a large
number of articles and patents to kind of "learn" the field. In alla of
these, getting full performance would involved much effort.
Oh, would be fun to tinker with physical packages if someone would cook
them up.
Cheers,
Magnus
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