The heart of a minuscule atomic clock—believed to be 100 times smaller than any other atomic clock—has been demonstrated by scientists at the Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and ...

Atomic clocks that excite the nucleus of thorium-229 embedded in a transparent crystal when hit by a laser beam could yield the most accurate measurements ever of time and gravity, and even rewrite ...

For many years, cesium atomic clocks have been reliably keeping time around the world. But the future belongs to even more accurate clocks: optical atomic clocks. In a few years' time, they could ...

Atomic clocks are based upon quartz crystals. These crystals vibrate at a very uniform rate when an electric current is passed through them. By measuring minute variations in those vibrations over ...