Tiny Atomic Clock from NIST and Georgia Tech Could Bring Stable Timing to Places GPS Can't Reach
A first-of-its-kind miniature atomic clock the size of a postage stamp, made by researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in collaboration with Georgia Institute of Technology, could bring stable timing to places where GPS can't reach—such as deep underwater, where timekeeping becomes less accurate when temperatures and light levels shift over days or weeks. NIST has set up a collaboration with HRL Laboratories, University of Colorado Boulder and Virginia Tech to explore further miniaturization of this atomic beam clock technology.
Photo caption: NIST's Alexander Staron (left), William McGehee and Gabriela Martinez worked together on a new chip-scale version of an atomic beam clock, a tiny fraction of the size of the original instrument shown here. (Credit: R. Jacobson/NIST)