Technologies
PSI is proud of its technological capability and innovative approach. The technologies explained here rely on very basic physics and are hence widely applicable and compete readily with new technologies as they are developed elsewhere in the microwave and wireless world.
PSI's intellectual property and technical strengths are based on two fundamental technologies.
Whispering Gallery Mode Electromagnetic Resonators
Since the 1980's PSI, in collaboration with the University of Western Australia, has developed the technology which is now the basis of the company's Sapphire Loaded Cavity resonator. This is the subject of one of the company's patents and enables the production of:
- Resonators with the highest "Q.f" product of any commercial technology: the resonators have an unloaded Q factor of 200,000 at room temperature
- Resonators with a center frequency accuracy of precision better than 1 part in 10 million
- Resonators with low sensitivity to vibration and environmental effects
The Sapphire Loaded Cavities form the core of PSI's oscillator products and are one of the keys to the the ultra-low phase noise and low jitter of those oscillators.
Carrier Suppression Interferometers
A crucial element in PSI's signal generators is its patented noise detection and suppression circuit, the Carrier Suppression Interferometer.
The Interferometer was developed in collaboration with the Department of Physics at the University of Western Australia. Carrier Suppression Interferometers and Phase Detectors have been used in radio frequency signal processing for many years. In 1993 staff at UWA developed a technique by which fundamental limitations set by noise of the circuit elements could be reduced by a factor of between 100 and 1000. This work was carried out under a program jointly supported and directed by PSI.
The novel technique is covered by several international patent applications and granted patents. It has broad applications and is of major significance in the radio frequency community.
Published Papers
FCS 2006 - Sapphire Loop Oscillators (1,157kb)
FCS 2006 - 1.3GHz Dielectric Oscillators (299kb)
FCS 2004 - Review of Sapphire Oscillators (304kb)
Low Phase Noise Division From X-Band to 640 MHz (380kb)
Presented at 2002 IEEE Freq. Cont. Symp.
Ultra-low Noise Semiconductor Modelocked Lasers for OTDM Applications (395kb)
(in collaboration with MIT and NEC Corporation)
Published in Optics Letters, May 2001
3-Axis Vibration Performance of a Compact Sapphire Microwave Oscillator (39kb)
Proceedings of 2001 IEEE Freq. Cont. Symp.
Phase Noise of X-Band Regenerative Dividers (191kb)
Proceedings of 2000 IEEE Freq. Cont. Symp.
Review of Feedforward and Feedback Noise Reduction Techniques (130kb)
(in collaboration with the University of Western Australia)
Invited paper, Proceedings of 1998 IEEE Freq. Cont. Symp.
Other Publications
ODIN-320A Phase Noise Analyser brochure (2003) (436kb)
OR-101 Receiver for ODIN (2004) (268kb)
OR-102 Receiver for ODIN (2004) (281kb)
OD-103 Delay Line for ODIN (2004) (245kb)
Compact Oscillator Product Feature from Microwave Journal (January, 2002) (385kb)
Sapphire Loaded Cavity Oscillator brochure (2004) (1.63mb)
Shoebox Oscillator brochure (2002) (173mb)
Low Noise Regenerative Divider brochure (2002) (123kb)