Optimum Short-Term Frequency Stability Improvement in Multi-Delay Line Surface-Acoustic-Wave Oscillators

It has been shown that the maximum short-term frequency stability of a surface-acoustic-wave delay-line-controlled oscillator can be substantially increased, particularly at high frequencies, if multi-delay lines are used instead of a single delay line. An improvement ratio of larger than six orders of magnitude appears to be possible. Conditions for maximum short-term frequency stability improvement are also given.