The international definition of the second as a unit of time could be about to change thanks to the development of a new type of advanced atomic clock that has more precision and stability than current ones. Jérôme Lodewyck and his colleagues at the Paris Observatory have shown that so-called Optical Lattice Atomic Clocks (OLCs) could offer a more precise and stable measure of the basic unit of measurement of time, as published in the latest issue of the journal Nature Communications .
Since 1967 the second has been defined as the duration of 9,192,631,770 oscillations of absorbed or emitted microwave radiation when a cesium atom jumps between two energy states. OLCs clocks, on the other hand, use lasers, which oscillate faster than electromagnetic waves, allowing time to be divided into smaller units, offering even more precision. Specifically, in the clock under study, 10,000 radioactive strontium atoms are trapped and measured using laser light. According to Lodewyck's experiments, with this new method only one second would be lost every 300 million years , which means that it is three times more accurate than current cesium clocks.
The new generation of atomic clocks could give a twist to physics experiments that delve deep into the laws of the universe.
