Ekkehard Peik is a watchmaker. But instead of using a magnifying glass to peer at tiny gears and springs, he uses powerful lasers, wires, and the occasional radioactive atom as his tools of work. The director of the German Metrology Institute (PTB), Peik is one of a handful of physicists who have spent nearly three decades trying to build the most accurate clock in the universe.
Researchers have been building atomic clocks since the 1950s. Today, the best atomic clocks are incredibly accurate, losing just one second every 31 billion years. However, they are being replaced by newer models of atomic clocks.
It is expected to outperform atomic clocks in both precision and accuracy, which in principle would lose just one second every 300 billion years. You may wonder why we need something with such incredible accuracy? It’s because it has uses that are far more interesting than simply telling time. Atomic clocks could help us probe some of the deepest mysteries of the universe, such as the nature of dark matter and the elusive fundamental forces that shape it.
Today’s atomic clocks tick by electrons oscillating between a pair of shells around the nucleus of an atom. Transitions between these shells are induced by shining a laser at the relevant atoms at the right frequency to exactly match the frequency of the oscillations. This state is called resonance. This resonant frequency, or the number of light oscillations per second, allows us to…
