Agilent Technologies, Inc.

Other

Andrea De Marchi

Francesco Cisternino

Raffaele Girardi

Stefania Roemisch

A pendulum includes a movable body connected to a stationary supporting structure for oscillation in a fixed vertical plane. The pendulum further includes a control and stabilization system for controlling and stabilizing the oscillation amplitude of the movable body. The control and stabilization system includes a braking device which includes a permanent magnet and an electrically conductive element, one of which is attached to the movable body and the other of which is connected to the supporting structure such that when the movable body approaches one end of the oscillation field, the generated magnetic flux causes a braking of the movable body's motion. The quality factor Q of the pendulum is substantially proportional to the inverse of a power, at least equal to the square, of the amplitude of the oscillation of the movable body with the amplitude is close to the desired amplitude of oscillation.

Pendulum, particularly for use in a clock

The circuit includes an electro-optical mixer, such as an electro-optical Mach-Zehnder modulator, with non-linear behavior. The modulator receives as input an optical signal (P,) at the frequency to be divided, in addition to an electric signal (e,) at a given frequency, usually corresponding to the frequency deriving from such division. The output optical signal (P,) from modulator exhibits a modulation spectrum containing the frequency difference between the frequency to be divided and at least one harmonic of the frequency of the above electric signal. After having been converted into an electric signal (e,), the output signal of the mixer is subjected to a filtering action to extract the above frequency difference component. This latter one is then used both as electrical signal (e,) for the mixing, and as output signal from the divider (e,). The preferred application is to OTDM systems, to extract a synchronism signal as tributary signal frequency.

Opto-electronic frequency divider circuit and method of operating same

The circuit includes an electro-optical mixer, such as an electro-optical Mach-Zehnder modulator (,), with non-linear behaviour. The modulator (,) receives as input an optical signal (P,) at the frequency to be divided, in addition to an electric signal (e,) at a given frequency, usually corresponding to the frequency deriving from such division. The output optical signal (P,) from modulator (,) exhibits a modulation spectrum containing the frequency difference between the frequency to be divided and at least one harmonic of the frequency of the above electric signal. After having been converted into an electric signal (e,), the output signal of the mixer is subjected to a filtering action (,) to extract the above frequency difference component. This latter one is then used both as electrical signal (e,) for the mixing, and as output signal from the divider (e,). The preferred application is to OTDM systems, to extract a synchronism signal at tributary signal frequency.

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Turin, Italy

Andrea De Marchi