Brief
Lutetium‑Based Atomic Clock Sets New Accuracy Record
The clock measured its transition frequency to 19 decimal places, achieving the lowest reported uncertainty for any optical atomic clock.
By Felo News Desk · Published
Researchers at the Centre for Quantum Technologies (CQT) of the National University of Singapore have built an optical atomic clock using a single lutetium‑176 ion that reaches an uncertainty of 1 × 10⁻¹⁹, the lowest ever reported for such devices, according to a paper in Nature.
The clock locks a laser to the ion’s transition at a wavelength of 848 nm, and the team employed a technique called “hyperfine averaging” to define the transition. The resulting precision allows the clock to resolve height‑related gravitational differences of only a few millimetres.
Team leader Murray Barrett, a CQT principal investigator, said the lutetium transition is barely affected by temperature or magnetic‑field fluctuations, making the device stable across extreme environments—from Death Valley’s heat to the Antarctic plateau’s cold.
The achievement follows more than a decade of research into lutetium’s properties, positioning the element as a strong candidate for future time‑standard definitions and high‑precision gravity measurements.
Key facts
- The lutetium‑176 ion clock achieved an uncertainty of 1 × 10⁻¹⁹. (scitechdaily.com)
- The clock’s transition frequency was measured to 19 decimal places. (scitechdaily.com)
- Researchers used a method called hyperfine averaging to define the clock transition. (scitechdaily.com)
- Murray Barrett is the team leader and a principal investigator at CQT, NUS. (scitechdaily.com)
- The clock can detect gravitational potential differences corresponding to height changes of only a few millimetres. (scitechdaily.com)
Sources
- [1] scitechdaily.com — originally reported as “Scientists Just Built the World’s Most Accurate Clock”
