Phase noise calibrator

The necessity of developing of an initial relative phase noise level standard to ensure metrological traceability of small values of phase noise measurements. The relevance of creating a standard is due to the increased requirements for short-term frequency stability of modern signal generators and highly stable quartz oscillators, characterized by a relative level of phase noise. At the same time, according to existing verification methods, the phase noise measurement error is determined by the method of sinusoidal phase modulation, which does not provide a range of small values of phase noise. The presence of additional unaccounted sources of measurement error of small values of phase noise has been experimentally shown, which is confirmed in various publications. The article presents the results of the development of a calibrator of the relative level of phase noise based on the method of additive white Gaussian noise, which provides traceability of the phase noise measurement in a range of small values. The use of a comparator in the form of a phase noise analyzer for transmitting a unit within a local verification scheme is proposed. At the same time, the reproducible values of the calibrator, due to the possibility of adjusting the additive white Gaussian noise level, are set close to the measured values. This approach made it possible to reduce the measurement error by 2-3 times in relation to the self error of phase noise analyzers and ensured the reliability of the estimation small values of phase noise.

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