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 ...

Atomic clocks are our most accurate timekeepers, losing only seconds across billions of years. But nuclear clocks could steal their thunder, speeding up GPS and the internet. Now, scientists have ...

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.