Electrons are excited and switch back and forth between high and low energy levels. In atomic clocks, the atomic shell functions as the timekeeper.

A grandfather clock has a mechanical pendulum, the oscillations of which are registered by the clock's mechanism.

Precise knowledge of what frequency it needs for excitation is crucial for the feasibility of the technology.įor a clock, you need something that periodically oscillates and something that counts the oscillations. This atomic nucleus is to be used as the timekeeping element of nuclear clocks in the future. As they report in the journal Nature, they have managed to characterize the excitation energy of thorium-229 with great precision thanks to a new experimental approach. Working at the Chair of Experimental Physics in Garching, the two scientists have now made an important advance on the road to the first nuclear clock as part of an international team. In the race for nuclear time, Thirolf and Kraemer are in the leading pack. Sandro Kraemer, who played a major role in driving the project forward while completing his doctorate at KU Leuven in Belgium. 'This would open up a whole range of research fields that could never be investigated with atomic clocks,' adds Thirolf's colleague Dr. In contrast to conventional atomic clocks, this type of clock would register forces inside the atomic nucleus. 'We're talking about the forces that hold the world together at its core,' says LMU physicist Professor Peter Thirolf, who has been researching nuclear clocks for many years. Furthermore, they would enable scientists to delve deeper into fundamental physical phenomena.

With so-called nuclear clocks, it would be possible to measure time even more accurately. Atomic clocks measure time so precisely that they gain or lose less than a second every 30 billion years.

Atomic time keeping