Characterization and creation of a quartz watch

Supervisor : Hassan Sabbah, lecturer, IRAP, university of Paul Sabatier, Toulouse.

A quartz tuning fork is a device commonly used in oscillators for electronic systems. When used in conjunction with capacitors, a resonating state can be achieved, with a high stability factor suited to build stable and precise clocks. In this study we have assumed the quartz can be modelized by the Van Dyke model. We have measured the impedance of a quartz crystal to ensure the model is close to the reality and determined if it can be realized with conventional components such as capacitors, coils and resistors. We have then built a 1Hz clock using a quartz oscillator and characterized its precision.