Stability Study of ac Voltage Source using Josephson Voltage Standards

Published

August 30, 2024

Author(s)

Ghislain Granger, Waldemar G. Kuerten Ihlenfeld, Alain Rufenacht, Nathan Flowers-Jacobs, Anna Fox, Raegan Johnson, Jesus Mejia

Abstract

The stability of an ac voltage source fabricated at the National Research Council Canada (NRC) is investigated. NRC uses differential sampling to monitor the source voltage with respect to a step-wise approximated reference waveform generated by the Programmable Josephson Voltage Standard (PJVS) at 4 V and at 1 V. The frequency dependence of the source error is extracted, and the same measurements are repeated 13.5 months later to determine the long-term stability. Different digitizers are used to evaluate input filter effects. The NRC ac voltage source is found to be a suitable travelling standard with a stability of < 4 µV/V per year. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) uses differential sampling to monitor the difference between a Josephson Arbitrary Waveform Synthesizer (JAWS) at 1 V and this source. Information is obtained about the effect of relative humidity on the source phase.

Conference Dates

July 6-12, 2024

Conference Location

Denver, CO, US

Conference Title

2024 NCSL International & CPEM Workshop & Symposium

Pub Type

Conferences

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1109/CPEM61406.2024.10646131

Local Download

Keywords

Josephson effect, digital sampling, voltage measurement, voltage fluctuations, humidity dependence.

Citation

Granger, G. , Kuerten Ihlenfeld, W. , Rufenacht, A. , Flowers-Jacobs, N. , Fox, A. , Johnson, R. and Mejia, J. (2024), Stability Study of ac Voltage Source using Josephson Voltage Standards, 2024 NCSL International & CPEM Workshop & Symposium , Denver, CO, US, [online], https://doi.org/10.1109/CPEM61406.2024.10646131, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=957458 (Accessed October 9, 2025)