To address this scenario, DARPA has announced the Robust Optical Clock Network (ROCkN) program, which aims to create optical atomic clocks with low size, weight, and power (SWaP) that yield timing accuracy and holdover better than GPS atomic clocks and can be used outside a laboratory. If GPS were jammed by an adversary, time synchronization would rapidly deteriorate and threaten military operations. A timing error of just a few billionths of a second can translate to positioning being off by a meter or more. High-tech missiles, sensors, aircraft, ships, and artillery all rely on atomic clocks on GPS satellites for nanosecond timing accuracy. Synchronizing time in modern warfare – down to billionths and trillionths of a second – is critical for mission success. More information is available on the AQuRA website. The consortium is funded by a HORIZON Innovation Action grant from the European Commision. The AQuRA-consortium consists of the University of Amsterdam (the Netherlands), Menlo Systems GmbH (Germany), NKT Photonics A/S (Denmark), iXblue (France), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (France), Uniwersytet Mikolaja Kopernika w Toruniu (Poland), QuiX Quantum BV (the Netherlands), Vexlum Oy (Finland) and Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (Germany). You won’t be able to buy an optical atomic pocket watch yet, but you may encounter extremely precise quantum clocks the size of a small cupboard out there in the real world.” ![]() Hopefully four years from now, this contrast will be smaller. The funny thing is that to control the smallest things we know of – atoms – we need the biggest machines that one can still build in a university physics lab. Every atom of a certain type is exactly the same, and as a result, time measurements using light emitted by atoms can be made extremely precise. ![]() Schreck: “Atoms are the best time-keeping devices that we have. Together, the partners will build new clocks, test them in the field, strengthen supply chains for the different components – briefly: make the technologies that now exist in the lab ready for production and applications. Schreck, from the University of Amsterdam, and his collaborators found eight more partners from six different European countries who now together form AQuRA, short for Advanced Quantum Clock for Real-World Application. Such an endeavour requires a collaboration between physicists, industry partners and experts in metrology – the science of measurement. Schreck: “In practice, our goal is to build a clock that would only go wrong by about five seconds over the entire age of the universe – but in such a way that you can take this clock for a bumpy ride aboard a truck, after which it still works perfectly.” From the lab to the real world The iqClock consortium, AQuRA’s predecessor, managed to bring optical atomic clocks to level TRL-5, where the technology mostly still works in a controlled laboratory environment. This would be a major improvement over the current state of the art. With AQuRA, we aim to bring optical atomic clocks to the TRL-7 level: the level where the first prototype clocks work in a real-world environment.’ For example, TRL-1 means that basic principles that might lead to an application have been observed, while the highest level, TRL-9, means that products are built and work in a real-world environment. ![]() Unfortunately, these optical atomic clocks – the name comes from the fact that the atoms in the atomic clock emit light in the optical spectrum – use advanced quantum technology and currently mainly exist as huge and complex installations in physics laboratories.įlorian Schreck, who leads the new consortium, explains: “The European Union measures the state of development of technological applications in terms of the so-called technological readiness level, or TRL. Devices for this do exist: modern optical atomic clocks are the successors of the ‘regular’ atomic clocks that have been used for all sorts of applications for decades. Ready for technologyĪll of these applications would benefit from even more precise timekeeping. Even underground exploration – looking for caves or gas supplies, for example – can benefit from gravity measurements using extremely precise clocks. The GPS system in your phone or car works because GPS satellites contain atomic clocks to time their signals extremely precisely. Telecom networks and the internet can only work quickly when the sending and receiving of data packages is accurately timed. Accurately measuring time is important in many settings.
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