Nuclear Clocks Tick for the First Time
- Researchers at Tsinghua University in Beijing and in Vienna have developed working nuclear clocks, with initial results published in Nature indicating the Chinese timepiece is more stable than the one from Vienna.
- For more than 70 years, scientists have used atomic clocks to measure time, but these new nuclear devices build on a 2003 proposal to track the atom's core rather than orbiting electrons.
- Atomic nuclei are about 100,000 times smaller than atoms, making these clocks less sensitive to external electric fields; however, they currently remain less stable than the best atomic clocks.
- Beijing scientists demonstrated reproducibility by showing separately grown crystals kept the same time, while Thorsten Schumm of the European team said, "Now we have a fierce but friendly global competition."
- These nuclear clocks could help scientists probe fundamental questions like detecting dark matter, though further work involving more powerful lasers may be required to overcome existing stability limitations.
19 Articles
19 Articles
Two independent teams of researchers, one in Europe and the other in China, have succeeded in developing thorium-based prototypes.
Austrian, German and Czech researchers have developed the world's first autonomous nuclear clock based on the isotope thorium-229, which is highly resistant to interference. Physicists have created atomic clocks that can operate in a completely autonomous mode, without external stabilization. A device based on thorium-229 nuclei is highly resistant to electromagnetic interference, TASS reported referring to the press service of the Vienna Techni…
Science Writing, 7 Oct (EFE).- Two independent teams led by Austrian and Chinese researchers present on Wednesday in two articles in the journal Nature prototypes of functional nuclear clocks based on thorium isotopes-229. These instruments measure time by observing how light interacts with an atomic nucleus and could overcome in performance [...] The entry New steps towards more precise clocks even than atomic ones was first published in HolaNe…
Scientists in Vienna and Beijing create world’s first nuclear clocks
By Will Dunham Oct 7 (Reuters) - Scientific teams working separately in Vienna and Beijing have developed the world's first two operating nuclear clocks in what they are calling an important advance in timekeeping that promises wide-ranging practical a...
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