Clayton R. Locke

Clayton R. Locke was born in Perth, Australia, in 1975. He has been a Researcher at the Frequency Standards and Metrology Research Group at the University of Western Australia, Perth, since 1997, when he began a Ph.D. project to develop a novel low-loss monolithic sapphire transducer having the potential to measure noise fluctuations of the mechanical oscillator at the standard quantum limit. This project necessitated ultralow-noise-readout systems and attention to mechanical-vibration isolation. A suspension system was developed that yielded a world-class mechanical quality factor that was limited only by the intrinsic quality of the sapphire. Following this, his Graduate Research Assistant work aided in the design and construction of a patented new design of temperature-compensated resonator that utilizes a dual-mode sapphire resonator. In 2002 and 2003, he commenced work on the construction of the next-generation liquid-helium-cooled sapphire oscillators, destined for use at CNES in France, related to the PHARAO cold atom clock. Similar work was undertaken in 2006, this time, destined for use at the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Tokyo, Japan. In constructing the sapphire oscillators, he helped develop new techniques to set accurate coupling of the resonator and implemented other design improvements that lowered the electronic-noise floor, resulting in oscillators having exceptional fractional frequency stability. In 2006, he took up an Australian Research Council Australian Postdoctoral Fellowship (UWA) to continue his work in the Frequency Standards and Metrology group.