Optical atomic clocks are the most accurate measuring instruments ever built and are becoming key tools for basic and applied research, for example to test the constancy of natural constants or for height measurements in geodesy. Now, researchers at the QUEST Institute at the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB), in collaboration with the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics (MPIK), the TU Braunschweig and Leibniz University Hannover and in the scope of the QuantumFrontiers Cluster of Excellence, have realised for the first time an optical atomic clock based on highly charged ions. This type of ion lends itself to such an application because it has extraordinary atomic properties and low sensitivity to external electromagnetic fields. The researchers report on their results in the current issue of Nature.
Read the complete news on the website of the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt.
Original publkcation:
King, S.A., Spieß, L.J., Micke, P. et al.
An optical atomic clock based on a highly charged ion.
Nature 611, 43–47 (2022).
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05245-4
