Rubidium Oscillators Additional Precision for NTP Serve (Part 2)
Continued…
However, there are some occasions when a time server can lose connection with the atomic clock and not receive the time code for a prolonged period of time. Sometimes this may be because of downtime by the atomic clock controllers for maintenance or that nearby interference is blocking the transmission.
Obviously the longer the signal is down the more potential drift may occur on the network as the crystal oscillator in the NTP server is the only thing keeping time. For most applications this should never be a problem as the most prolonged period of downtime is not normally more than three or four hours and the NTP server would not have drifted by much in that time and the occurrence of this downtime is quite rare (maybe once or twice a year).
However, for some ultra precise high end applications rubidium crystal oscillators are beginning to be used as they don’t drift as much as quartz. Rubidium (often used in atomic clocks themselves instead of caesium) is far more accurate an oscillator than quartz and provides better accuracy for when there is no signal to a NTP time server allowing the network to maintain a more accurate time.
Rubidium itself is an alkali metal, similar in properties to potassium. It is very slightly radioactive although poses no risk to human health (and is often used in medicine imaging by injecting it into a patient). It has a half life of 49 billion years (the time it takes to decay by half – in comparison some of the most lethal radioactive materials have half-lives of under a second).
The only real danger posed by rubidium is that it reacts rather violently to water and can cause fire
