Procedure and apparatus for measuring phase noise of sinusoidal signal generators.

摘要

The subject of the present invention is a procedure for measuring phase noise of generators, especially of sinusoidal oscillators, and the apparatus for implementing this procedure. Measuring method characterised in that it consists essentially, on the one hand, in generating, from the signal coming from the oscillator (1) to be analysed, regular trains of laser pulses (2), taken into account by a slot-scanning camera (3) with very high time-domain resolution and, on the other hand, in simultaneously instigating the scanning of the visual display screen of the said camera (3) by means of the same signal issued by the oscillator (1) to be analysed, in sampling the light traces representative of the laser pulses (2) received on the visual display screen, either individually, or in series, by means of a matrix video camera (4), with very high spatial resolution, linked to a processing unit (5) and, finally, in evaluating the shifts, in the direction of scanning of the visual display screen, of the light traces recorded in the course of the measurement with respect to an initial trace serving as reference, with a view to determining, at a given instant and over a given time interval, the variation in the phase of the signal from the said oscillator (1). <IMAGE>