New Atomic Clock Is As Small as Postage Stamp but Not As Accurate as Its Predecessors

An experimental atomic clock had been developed. It is tiny and works but not as accurate as the first ones designed for the job.

Tiny Atomic Clock CSBC

Since the early 2000s, when the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) created the chip-scale atomic clock (CSAC), small atomic clocks have been available. This tiny gadget was modeled after CSACs. However, this one differs in that it measures atomic resonance frequencies with atomic beams, just as the enormous, stationary atomic clocks that have long served as the US standard for timekeeping.

Given its small size, the CSAC has minimal power and good performance. However, it drifts after a few thousand seconds of operation, according to NIST scientist and co-author of the CSBC research William McGehee. When the temperature of the gas surrounding the atoms in their tiny chambers changes, CSACs tend to lose more time, The Register reported.

This is a common worry because CSACs are frequently used in telecommunications, military navigation, and subsurface oil and gas exploration, potentially exposing them to various environmental factors.

According to McGehee, the CSBC experiment's goal was to determine whether merging CSACs and beam clocks was even feasible. It turns out that it is.

Atomic fountain clocks have mostly supplanted less accurate atomic beam clocks, the most recent being NIST-7, the US timekeeping standard from 1993 to 1999.

Beam clocks are still helpful for measuring time, despite the fact that modern models are only predicted to drift by one second once in a million years.

Recent fountain clock designs have reached a drift of one second over 100 million years, which is extremely accurate but not always essential when smaller is preferable.

Beam clocks must have quite large microwave cavities, which accounts for their hefty size (NIST-7 measured more than eight feet long); however, thanks to microfabrication techniques used to create CSACs, it is now possible to develop tiny beam channels that are only 100 micrometers wide and 10mm long and are integrated into a device made from multiple layers of etched silicone and glass.

The source material is heated rubidium, which is utilized to excite the atoms and cause them to beam through the channels. The researchers used non-evaporable getters, or NEGs, which can gather gasses and pull the rubidium atoms along to prevent errors from gas molecules in the chamber. Additionally, tiny graphite rods catch stray atoms that can interfere with readings.

The experimental CSBC still performs, but it's not accurate.

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What Is an Atomic Clock?

An atomic clock is a special kind of clock that employs specific resonance frequencies of atoms to keep time extremely precise (often cesium or rubidium). The frequency of microwave electromagnetic radiation controls the electrical parts of atomic clocks, per Britannica.

The cesium or rubidium atoms will undergo a quantum transition (energy change) only if this radiation is kept at a very particular frequency. Similar to the recurrent occurrences in other types of clocks, these quantum transitions are observed and preserved in an atomic clock's feedback loop, which trims the frequency of electromagnetic radiation. The waves are then tallied.

The Deep Space Atomic Clock is a significant improvement over satellite-based atomic clocks, which, for instance, power your phone's GPS. It increases the autonomy of spaceship navigation to far-off places like Mars, according to NASA.