Recirculating cryogenic hydrogen maser

We report on the design and initial testing of a new type of hydrogen maser, operated at dilution refrigerator temperatures, in which H atoms circulate back and forth between a microwave-pumped state selector and the maser cavity. Other novel design features include liquid-4He-coated walls, He-cooled electronics, and the use of microscopic magnetic particles to relax the two lowest hyperfine levels in the state selector. Stabilities at least as good as that of a Rb clock and a high-stability quartz oscillator are observed for measuring times between 1 and 300 s.