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Technology and Health News > Monday, March-10-2008

Splitting the picosecond



New mechanisms based on mercury and aluminum allow an accuracy ten times higher than the current systems.

New generation atomic clocks have been developed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (Nist), an international collaboration which includes Luke Lorini also of the National Research Metrologica (Inrim) in Turin. The research appeared in Science magazine, and showed the ability to measure frequencies, and thus time, with 17 significant digits, reaching an unprecedented accuracy. The two new atomic clocks are based on atoms of mercury and aluminum. The first system had already been submitted in 2000, but the current version is definitely improved, the mechanism based on aluminum represents a completely new system.


Both atomic clocks are based on precise vibration of ions (atoms electrically loads) present within them. The researchers calculated that both systems should 'lose' less than a second in one million years. In particular,for aluminum clocks, the result is not sensitive to external electromagnetic fields and temperature, which makes it particularly interesting, as evidenced by Till Rosenband, the physicist who led the research on this new system.

These atomic clocks have a very high precision and thus many applications, not only to synchronize telecommunications networks and other systems and planetary spacecraft such as navigation systems and satellite positioning, but also to redefine the fundamental physical constants, and assess the possible change over time. These studies, as Jim Bergquist, the physicist at Nist who developed the mercury clock, pointed out, in addition to being subjects of great interest in science, may lead to a change in the models with which we currently describe the cosmos.

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