Conclusions.
- Even though several possible aging
mechanisms are well understood, the aging of resonators
is still not well understood.
- Aging performance, including variations
with temperature and drive level, depends on the
resonator design and fabrication technology.
- Many processing deviations can degrade
aging performance.
- High temperature processing seems
necessary (but not sufficient) for the production of
low-aging resonators.
- The SC-cut, and modern ultrahigh vacuum
and high temperature fabrication techniques have resulted
in resonators which achieve low-aging in a shorter period
of time than the best resonators made a generation ago,
however, the aging of the best modern resonators after
extended periods is no better today than what was
reported for the best resonators in the 1960s.
- Accelerated aging studies are useful for
process control. Using accelerated aging data for long
term aging predictions is possible, but considerable work
and expense are required to reduce the risk of error to
acceptable confidence levels
- The best reproducible long term aging
rates seem to be a few times 10-11 per day.
Occasional resonators exhibit aging rates of a few times
10-12 per day after extended periods.
- Environmental changes can produce
frequency changes that appear to be aging. This apparent
aging is now called "drift."
Although the state-of-the-art in the long term
aging of low-aging resonators has been on a plateau for more than
a generation, there is no reason to believe that the factors
responsible for limiting the achievable long term aging are
insurmountable. The definitive experiments, in which all known
aging mechanisms are minimized, are yet to be performed. It is
the authors' hope that the review in this paper will assist
future researchers in the design of experiments that result in
significant improvements in aging.
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© 2000 IEEE