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 ...

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. ...

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 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.

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 lattices are regular arrays of identical energy wells created by criss-crossing laser beams. By injecting ultracold atoms into the energy wells, the lattices can be used to create and study a ...

This week, a paper s put forth an alternative method of standardizing the second, one which reduces the variability between clocks, and has implications for increasingly precise experiments.

Same-sized (2 µm diameter) polymer and silica spheres in water co-flow from right to left through the optical lattice at a fluid speed of 30 µm s-1 with a total incident laser power of 530 mW.

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.