JILA’s groundbreaking work on nuclear clocks has been highlighted in Interesting Engineering, showcasing the team’s latest advancements in ultra-precise timekeeping. Their recent study, published as an Editor's Choice paper in Physical Review Letters, explores how temperature variations affect the thorium-229 nuclear transition—an essential step toward developing a next-generation nuclear clock that could surpass the accuracy of current atomic clocks.

The researchers discovered that specific nuclear transitions in thorium-229 exhibit minimal sensitivity to temperature fluctuations, with frequency shifts as small as 62 kilohertz over a broad temperature range. This insight helps stabilize the clock’s frequency against thermal changes, with the study identifying an optimal operating range between 150K and 229K.

To conduct these experiments, JILA’s team collaborated with their in-house instrument shop to design specialized equipment, including a crystal mount for the thorium-doped crystal and a cold trap system for precise temperature control. Their work represents a crucial step toward the realization of nuclear clocks, which could revolutionize timekeeping with unprecedented precision.

Read more about this research in Interesting Engineering here.