High-performance microwave atomic clocks have broad applications, both for military and civilian uses. A low-phase-noise microwave frequency oscillator/synthesizer is necessary to ensure the high performance of these microwave clocks. A power-hungry conventional low-phase-noise microwave frequency oscillator/synthesizer circuit usually limits the reduction of the power consumption in these atomic clocks. AOSense proposes to combine recent development of sub-sampling phase-locked loop (SSPLL) in microwave integrated circuit design with our expertise in microwave atomic clocks to demonstrate a low-power, low-phase-noise microwave SSPLL circuit, which will enable low-SWaP microwave atomic clocks for quantum timing applications.
