Remember that clock that made you late by gradually getting slower over time – or even stopping completely? What if, rather than the rhythmic tick-tock of the rotating hands, your clock was actually nuclear powered?

This clock of science fiction is getting a little closer to reality, as researchers from TU Wein have successfully made the world’s first nuclear clock.

Scientists from the university, led by Professor Thorsten Schumm, modelled this clock of the future for precision. Rather than a pendulum, which needs to be wound up, rotating hands which are battery powered, or modern high-precision clocks which use laser measurements of electromagnetic waves, but can decrease in accuracy over time if the laser is not re-calibrated, this is an atomic clock.

The clock works through a process of thorium transition, by which a laser switches an atomic nucleus from one state to another; this allows for high-precision measurements.

The clock, which embodies this technology through the use of a crystal containing thorium atomic nuclei, is efficient in high-accuracy, highly precise timekeeping.

The significance of this development is explained by Professor Schumm in a statement from UC Wein:

“Thorium nuclei have two states of very similar energy, so you can switch them with lasers. But for this to work, you have to know the energy difference between these two states very precisely.

For many years, research teams around the world had been searching for the exact value of this energy difference in order to be able to switch thorium nuclei in a targeted manner – we were the first to succeeded, this is the result we published in April.

With this first prototype, we have proven: Thorium can be used as a timekeeper for ultra-high-precision measurements. All that is left to do is technical development work, with no more major obstacles to be expected.”

Not only is this project ground-breaking, it is also extremely innovative.

Though the prototype was quick in development – coming only months after the scientists published their first results with the thorium switching process – the science was actually years in the making.

As well as pioneering development of the nuclear crystal, the scientists had to experiment with different laser light ranges in order to make the process fully accurate and efficient, as Professor Schumm describes in the statement:

“The atomic clock works with laser light in the infrared range, which is used to excite strontium atoms. However, our thorium atomic nuclei need radiation in the UV range.

We therefore need a way to turn infrared frequencies to UV frequencies, similar to a mechanical transmission that turns a slow rotational frequency into a faster rotation using suitable gears.

The crystal is the central element of the experiment. It was produced at TU Wien, in Vienna, and several years of development work were required to develop the necessary expertise.”

It is possible that, while this nuclear clock is only a prototype, with the research only recently being published in the academic journal Nature, that further progress on this project will come fast.

Though it seems unlikely that you’ll have a nuclear clock in your kitchen any time soon, Professor Schumm did comment on the speed of innovation and how this development will naturally lead to more:

“Our aim was to develop a new technology. Once it’s there, the increase in quality comes naturally, that has always been the case.

The first cars weren’t any faster than carriages. It was all about introducing a new concept. And that’s exactly what we’ve now achieved with the nuclear clock.

When we excited the transition for the first time, we were able to determine the frequency to within a few gigahertz. That was already more than a factor of a thousand better than anything known before.

Now, however, we have precision in the kilohertz range – which is again a million times better. That way, we expect to overtake the best atomic clocks in 2-3 years.”

In the future, there will be no excuse for losing track of time!

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