Nuclear Clocks: Ultra-Precise Timekeeping

This is a news story, published by MSN, that relates primarily to UCLA news.

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nuclear clocks

Phys Org

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Thin-film tech makes nuclear clocks a 1,000 times less radioactive and more affordable

Summary

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87% Informative

Nuclear clocks utilize the energy transitions in the atom's nucleus, which are less affected by outside forces.

Using thin films of thorium tetrafluoride (ThF4) marks a potential turning point in the development of nuclear clocks.

This method used just micrograms of radioactive thorium-229 crystals, making the product a thousand times less radioactive and more cost-effective.

A broad-spectrum laser has all of its optical power concentrated in one spectral location instead of a frequency comb.

This allowed the UCLA team to excite the thorium nuclei effectively, even though the observed linewidth is broader than previously seen in the previous study.

These thin films could additionally allow nuclear timekeeping to move beyond laboratory settings by making them compact and portable.

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