A team of researchers has developed a novel method for using cholesteric liquid crystals in optical microcavities. The ...

Cesium atomic clocks are really, really good— the best of them have an uncertainty of around a part in 10 16, which is to say when it measures one second, that’s 1.0000000000000000+/-0. ...

An optical lattice clock is a type of atomic clock that can be 100 times more accurate than cesium atomic clocks, the current standard for defining "seconds." Its precision is equivalent to an ...

Optical lattices have rapidly become a favoured tool of atomic and condensed-matter physicists. These crystals made of light can be used to trap atoms at very low temperatures, creating a workshop ...

Optical lattice clocks could even aid the search for elusive dark matter, Ye said. "Dark matter somehow must interact with ordinary matter, other than just gravitational physics," Ye said.

Optical lattices have also been used to investigate various intriguing aspects of 1D quantum gases. The dimensionality of a macroscopic quantum system can have a large impact on its physical behaviour ...

Optical lattice clocks operate using the same three principles as conventional clocks. Yet in this type of clock, the oscillator, counter and frequency reference take a very different form.

Our optical lattice experiments are the perfect way to do this. They offer a highly controllable replica of the material that we can uniquely manipulate in a laboratory.

Optical lattice clocks could even aid the search for elusive dark matter, Ye said. "Dark matter somehow must interact with ordinary matter, other than just gravitational physics," Ye said.