The first ticking 'nuclear clocks' are here
5 hours ago
- #Nuclear Clock
- #Timekeeping Precision
- #Thorium-229
- First nuclear clocks developed by two teams in Europe and China, using atomic nuclei energy states instead of electrons for timekeeping.
- Thorium-229 atoms' nuclei transition triggered by UV laser light, overcoming previous challenges to achieve a stable oscillation.
- Clocks demonstrated high precision with minimal drift—one second over three million years—though less stable than best optical atomic clocks.
- Crystal-based nuclear clocks are robust, portable, and less sensitive to environmental changes, enabling potential applications in navigation and communication.
- Nuclear clocks offer a new tool to probe fundamental physics, including potential effects of dark matter on nuclear forces, marking the birth of a new field.