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Atomic System Clocks

Enabling Highly Precise and Reliable Time Keeping for a Variety of Industries

Atomic system clocks define the unit second and the time of the day. These clocks achieve the tightest stabilities and accuracies of any commercial time or frequency references. Previously, they were only used by national research and metrology labs. Today, they are widely deployed to meet the demands for increasing tighter synchronization for multiple industries and to address Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) denial concerns.

Featured Products

MHM-2020 Hydrogen Maser

Hydrogen Maser

  • Most stable commerically available clock
  • < 8.5E-14 ADEV @ 1s tau
  • Auto tune and drift compensation software for aging < 3E-16 per day
  • > 20 years of operation at nominal hydrogen flux
Explore MHM-2020
Cesium Reference Image

Cesium References

  • Primary frequency references requiring no calibration
  • < 5E-13 frequency accuracy
  • No long-term frequency drift
  • Telecom models for ePRTC applications
  • External 1 PPS disciplining
Explore Cesium References
8040C Rackmount Rubidium Standard Image

Rubidium Instrument

  • 1U rack mount rubidium instrument with up to 12 configurable outputs
  • < 5E-11 monthly aging
  • Standard and low-noise options
  • External 1 PPS disciplining
Explore 8040C
AOG-110 Auxiliary Output Generator Image

Auxiliary Output Generator

  • Generates high-resolution frequency and phase offset for use with hydrogen masers
  • Steers output to UTC without detuning the hydrogen maser cavity
  • 1E-19 resolution over 5E-8 range
Explore AOG-110

Choosing the Correct Atomic System Clock

Hydrogen, cesium or rubidium—how do you choose the right solution for your application? While there are many considerations, monthly aging and Allan deviation are the two primary performance differentiators. 

Considerations for Choosing the Correct Atomic System Clock

Principle of Operation

Commercially available atomic clocks work on the hyperfine transition electron spin flip principle. Radiating the outer valence electron of an atom or ion with microwave energy at a specific frequency changes the electron spin quantum number. Because the transition only occurs over an extremely narrow  bandwidth, the hyperfine transition is used to create extremely precise frequency and time references. 

Applications

Metrology and Time Keeping

  • Cesium references and hydrogen masers
  • Turnkey timescale solutions
  • Create UTC-traceable time with your atomic clocks
Learn More About Time Keeping
Radio Astronomy

Radio Astronomy

Hydrogen masers for Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) to synchronize globally distributed antennas and provide unprecedented resolution of deep space

Learn About MHM-2020 Hydrogen Maser
GNSS Ground Stations

GNSS Ground Station

Hydrogen masers and cesium references to generate stable time bases at the Position, Navigation and Time (PNT) cores that are distributed to users and determine location accuracy

Learn About GNSS and Time

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Visit our Frequency and Time Systems support portal to download technical documents and other resources, enter support tickets or open RMA service requests.

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