Tutorials Chair: Dr. Giancarlo Cerretto, Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca Metrologica
Pre-conference tutorials have been organized to provide in-depth learning prior to the start of the technical program. All courses will be taught in a classroom setting. Electronic notes will be made available for download by registered attendees from the meeting website; registered attendees are encouraged to download notes in advance of courses. Power will not be available to course attendees for individual laptop computers; please come prepared with adequate battery power, if required. ION reserves the right to cancel a portion of the tutorial program based on availability of the instructor.
Tutorial cost is for the full day of courses:
On or before January 3: $550, ION Member / $600, Non-Member
After January 3: $620, ION Member / $670, Non-Member
9:00 a.m. - 10:15 a.m. PST |
Microwave and Optical Atomic Clocks: Past, Present, and Future |
Dr. Shimon Kolkowitz |
10:30 a.m. - 11:45 a.m. PST |
TAI, UTC, and UTC(k): The Role of the Time Laboratories in the Realization of Reference Time Scales |
Dr. Jeff Sherman |
11:45 a.m. - 12:45 p.m. Buffet luncheon for tutorial attendees | ||
12:45 p.m. - 2:00 p.m. PST |
GNSS: The Importance of Timing and Best Practices in Processing GNSS Measurements for Remote Characterization of Space/Ground Clocks |
Dr. David Murphy |
2:15 p.m. - 3:30 p.m. PST |
White Rabbit: Technology, Applications and Best Practices in Disseminating Traceable Reference Time Scales |
Javier Serrano |
3:45 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. PST |
Low-Noise Digital Electronics for Time and Frequency Metrology |
Dr. Claudio Eligio Calosso |
Time: Monday, January 27, 9:00 a.m. - 10:15 a.m.
This tutorial includes a summary of the history of atomic clocks and their applications. It will start with the motivation, development, and operating principles of microwave atomic clocks, and will discuss their impact on physics research and society. It will provide a brief overview of some of the important figures of merit for atomic clocks, such as systematic accuracy, fractional frequency instability, reproducibility, and Allan deviation. Optical atomic clocks will be introduced, and the operating principles of both trapped ion optical clocks and optical lattice clocks will be explained. Emerging applications of optical atomic clocks, such as searches for new physics, gravitational wave detection, and relativistic geodesy will be explained. This section will conclude with looking to the future of where atomic clock research may be headed.
Dr. Shimon Kolkowitz is a professor of physics at UC Berkeley; and an experimental atomic physicist and quantum scientist, with his research focusing on precision measurement, quantum sensing, and metrology.
Time: Monday, January 27, 10:30 a.m. - 11:45 a.m.
Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is, by far, the most widely adopted consensus time scale for legal, commercial, metrological, and technical purposes. This tutorial discusses the methods and roles of national metrological laboratories in the realization and dissemination of UTC. We will also highlight some current challenges and opportunities: growing demand for accurate time distribution without dependence on global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) or without the complications that so-called leap seconds bring to digital time scale systems, and the campaign to redefine the SI second in terms of an optical atomic transition frequency.
Dr. Jeff Sherman currently leads the Time Realization and Distribution Group at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Jeff’s research centered around high-precision measurements in optical-atomic systems. He holds a PhD in Physics from the University of Washington, with postdoctoral work at the University of Oxford, and a National Research Council associateship at NIST.
Time: Monday, January 27, 12:45 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.
In this tutorial we will first give a GNSS overview in which we will show how GNSS can be used for a wide range of applications that cover a diverse range of areas including space and ground positioning, ionospheric and tropospheric studies, as well as timing. We will then present more details on how GNSS can be used for both ground and space receiver timing applications, as well as the best practices needed to achieve these results.
Dr. David Murphy is the leader of JPL’s IGS analysis center and JPL’s Near Earth Tracking Applications group which supports radar altimetry and gravimetry missions as well as helping to develop JPL’s GipsyX GNSS data processing software. Initially his research interests involved studying the radio emission from quasars, but over this time this morphed into studying the radio emission from GNSS satellites which are ~1e18 closer. He received his PhD in physics from The University of Manchester, U.K.
Time: Monday, January 27, 2:15 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.
This tutorial will cover the working principles of White Rabbit (WR) technology, starting with a detailed description of the fundamental building blocks of any WR network: the WR switch and the WR PTP Core. We will also discuss calibration of delays and asymmetries in a WR link. After a brief detour about the WR community and ecosystem, we will move on to describe some applications of WR in domains as diverse as physics, finance (including regulatory and traceability aspects) and future quantum networking technology. Finally, we will focus on one particular application, long-distance time transfer, and describe a set of best practices to optimize the performance of such links, as well as ongoing work to improve WR performance in this type of application.
Javier Serrano leads the Electronics Design and Low-level software section in CERN’s accelerator Controls, Electronics and Mechatronics group.
Time: Monday, January 27, 3:45 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
This tutorial focuses on the role of electronics in time and frequency metrology. It shows why a proper design of the electronic apparatus is a key aspect of an application: a new experiment, instrument or facility. After a brief comparison of off-the-shelf commercial versus custom solutions, the tutorial will show how to develop a custom high-performance and flexible apparatus. High performance is provided by low noise components, while flexibility is guaranteed by digital devices, in particular by Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). Practical examples among vapor cell clocks, coherent fiber links and timescale generation in real-time are then provided for clarifying the advantages of this approach.
Dr. Claudio Eligio Calosso is an INRIM senior researcher using low-noise digital electronics for innovating time and frequency metrology. His activities include primary frequency standards, vapor cells clocks, frequency dissemination over fiber links, phasemeters, frequency division and synthesis and, recently, real-time time scale generation. He is also interested in signal analysis, with particular attention to the role of aliasing in time interval counters and two-sample variances.