A powerful laser generates ultraviolet light as it shines into a jet of gas. For a nuclear clock to work in a new study, scientists used UV light to excite nuclear particles in an atom of thorium-229.

Using thin-film technology in nuclear clocks is commensurate with semiconductors and photonic integrated circuits, suggesting that future nuclear clocks could be more accessible and scalable.

A clock that ticks at the nuclear level. At the heart of this effort lies thorium-229, a rare isotope with a one-of-a-kind feature: it has a nuclear state that can be triggered using laser light.

Nuclear clocks, however, would apply these concepts at exponentially more fine-tuned parameters. As its name implies, these devices focus on the vibrations from a single nucleus as opposed to ...

A powerful laser generates ultraviolet light as it shines into a jet of gas. For a nuclear clock to work in a new study, scientists used UV light to excite nuclear particles in an atom of thorium-229.