{"id":226373,"date":"2025-12-03T00:36:35","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T06:36:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/12\/optical-clock-sets-new-accuracy-record-bringing-us-closer-to-a-new-definition-of-the-second"},"modified":"2025-12-03T00:36:35","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T06:36:35","slug":"optical-clock-sets-new-accuracy-record-bringing-us-closer-to-a-new-definition-of-the-second","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/12\/optical-clock-sets-new-accuracy-record-bringing-us-closer-to-a-new-definition-of-the-second","title":{"rendered":"Optical clock sets new accuracy record, bringing us closer to a new definition of the second"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/optical-clock-sets-new-accuracy-record-bringing-us-closer-to-a-new-definition-of-the-second.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A research team at VTT MIKES has set a new record in optical-clock absolute frequency measurements using a strontium single-ion clock with exceptionally low uncertainty and high uptime.<\/p>\n<p>The official definition of the second is set to be updated for the first time in decades. The change will be based on new optical clocks, which are far more precise than today\u2019s standards.<\/p>\n<p>Now, researchers at VTT MIKES have demonstrated a strontium single-ion optical clock with an exceptionally low systematic uncertainty of 7.9\u00d710\u207b\u00b9\u2079, among the lowest ever reported. Over 10 months, the clock\u2019s frequency was measured against International Atomic Time (TAI) with an impressive 84% uptime. The record-setting total uncertainty of this measurement was just 9.8\u00d710\u207b\u00b9\u2077, limited by the <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2025-01-redefining-optical-atomic-clock-accuracy.html?utm_source=embeddings&utm_medium=related&utm_campaign=internal\" rel=\"related\">cesium clocks<\/a> that realize the current definition of the second and calibrate TAI. The study is <a href=\"https:\/\/link.aps.org\/doi\/10.1103\/czlf-bfvp\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in Physical Review Applied.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A research team at VTT MIKES has set a new record in optical-clock absolute frequency measurements using a strontium single-ion clock with exceptionally low uncertainty and high uptime. The official definition of the second is set to be updated for the first time in decades. The change will be based on new optical clocks, which [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-226373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-futurism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226373\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}