Optical Reference Cavity surpasses environmental tests

This month, December 2019, an ongoing GSTP activity, to realise a compact Optical Stabilising Reference Cavity, reached a new milestone as the first engineering model successfully survived all of its environmental tests.

Optical reference cavities are an integral part of the highest-performing local oscillators for optical clocks and microwave frequency distribution systems and can be used for a range of future applications in space science, navigation, earth observation and telecommunications, as well as aerospace, radar, and high-resolution spectroscopy instrumentation.

The activity has brought together a consortium of seven Member States over a decade to bring this pioneering technology to fruition and the prototype will be on display at ESTEC in February 2020.