The most precise clocks ever built are now testing Einstein, hunting dark matter, and reshaping how we define time itself. In ...

This has now paved the way for a multi-ion optical ytterbium clock that combines the high accuracy of single-ion clocks with ...

As well as being useful for creating an optical ion clock, this multi-ion capability could also be exploited to create quantum-computing architectures based on multiple trapped ions. And because the ...

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 ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. MIT and Harvard scientists have built the world’s most precise optical clock, surpassing the quantum limit with entangled atoms ...

Atomic clocks record time using microwaves at a frequency matched to electron transitions in certain atoms. They are the basis upon which a second is defined. But there is a new kid on the block, the ...

The field of optical atomic clocks, in combination with ultracold atoms, has transformed precision timekeeping and metrology. By utilising laser-cooled atoms confined in optical lattices, researchers ...

The next generation of atomic clocks “ticks” at the frequency of a laser. That is around 100,000 times faster than the microwave frequencies of the caesium clocks that currently generate the second.

For many years, cesium atomic clocks have been reliably keeping time around the world. But the future belongs to even more ...