Crystal oven

An OCXO inside an HP digital frequency counter
Miniature crystal oven used to stabilize the frequency of a vacuum-tube mobile radio transmitter

A crystal oven is a temperature-controlled chamber used to maintain the quartz crystal in electronic crystal oscillators at a constant temperature, in order to prevent changes in the frequency due to variations in ambient temperature. An oscillator of this type is known as an oven-controlled crystal oscillator (OCXO, where "XO" is an old abbreviation for "crystal oscillator"). This type of oscillator achieves the highest frequency stability possible with a crystal. They are typically used to control the frequency of radio transmitters, cellular base stations, military communications equipment, and for precision frequency measurement.