Nuclear effect The deformed shape of the ytterbium-173 nucleus (right) makes it possible to excite the clock transition with a relatively low-power laser. The same transition is forbidden (left) if ...

Optical clocks are highly precise timekeeping devices that measure time by tracking the oscillations of light, as opposed to microwaves, like conventional atomic clocks. The accuracy of these clocks ...

For the first time, an international team of physicists has successfully harnessed a rare orbital transition in atoms of ...

The way time is measured is on the edge of a historic upgrade. At the heart of this change is a new kind of atomic clock that uses light instead of microwaves. This shift means timekeeping could ...

A string of experiments using thorium-229 nuclei has brought the long-theorized nuclear clock closer to reality, producing frequency measurements stable enough to challenge the atomic clocks that ...

Atomic clocks have long been the gold standard for measuring time and frequency. Among them, optical clocks—using atoms like strontium or aluminum—have reached staggering levels of accuracy, with ...

Claire Cramer, the executive director of quantum science at the University of California, Berkeley, who was in attendance, expressed optimism about the potential of solid-state nuclear clocks: “This ...