DARPA said that time synchronisation is ‘critical’ to achieving mission success in modern warfare. Calling for further theoretical and experimental investigation, the authors assert that even if the precision of such clocks turns out to be less competitive than the fountains, the optical lattice clocks have a clear advantage of a smaller apparatus size, making them useful in applications like navigation systems and precision tests of fundamental symmetries in space. The Robust Optical Clock Network (ROCkN) scheme aims to develop clocks with low size, weight and power that can offer better timing accuracy and holdover than global positioning system (GPS) based atomic clocks. While a portable cesium clock could benefit numerous scientific and general applications, the expected accuracy of the optical lattice clocks has yet to be explored. This property allows the atomic clock to function properly at a smaller size. By applying an external magnetic field to the lattice in a specific direction, the atomic clock is rendered insensitive to the laser field strength. But the lasers can hamper the time keeping ability of the atoms. And not only that, but will be more precise and accurate than current atomic clocks last generation. The aim of the program is to study the basic physics of the optical clock principle and to find a way to make optical atomic clocks of low size, weight and power. ![]() ![]() Optical lattices are created by trapping atoms in a standing wave light field formed by laser beams. well now DARPA’s ROCKn program aims to make optical atomic clocks portable. Physicists from the University of New South Wales, Australia and the University of Nevada, Reno propose a method to reduce the size of atomic clocks to handy, compact devices using specially engineered optical lattices.
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