- Banned
- #1
Will have a big impact on research
NIST researchers have devised a way to synchronize the time of two different clocks – separated by as much as 4 km of open, turbulent air – to within a few millionths of a billionth of a second using optical light pulses. That constitutes a thousand-fold improvement in sensitivity compared to the best conventional methods that connect and control clocks at radio frequencies.
A network of such clocks, synchronized on a femtosecond (fs, 10-15 s) time scale, could enable dramatic advances in tests of general relativity, coherent sensing, the future redefinition of the second, and even such exotic applications as searches for dark matter.*
“The scientific motivations for the world’s best clocks often rely on the ability to compare or even synchronize the clocks,” says Laura Sinclair, one of the team of scientists in NIST’s Physical Measurement Laboratory who invented and tested the system. “If we want to be able to use ‘time networks’ for sensing, relativistic tests, precision navigation or other applications we have yet to imagine, we need to be able to make the connection between clocks without reducing the performance.”
Optical Clocks Synched to Femtoseconds Over Air
NIST researchers have devised a way to synchronize the time of two different clocks – separated by as much as 4 km of open, turbulent air – to within a few millionths of a billionth of a second using optical light pulses. That constitutes a thousand-fold improvement in sensitivity compared to the best conventional methods that connect and control clocks at radio frequencies.
A network of such clocks, synchronized on a femtosecond (fs, 10-15 s) time scale, could enable dramatic advances in tests of general relativity, coherent sensing, the future redefinition of the second, and even such exotic applications as searches for dark matter.*
“The scientific motivations for the world’s best clocks often rely on the ability to compare or even synchronize the clocks,” says Laura Sinclair, one of the team of scientists in NIST’s Physical Measurement Laboratory who invented and tested the system. “If we want to be able to use ‘time networks’ for sensing, relativistic tests, precision navigation or other applications we have yet to imagine, we need to be able to make the connection between clocks without reducing the performance.”
Optical Clocks Synched to Femtoseconds Over Air
