New Atomic Clock Three Times More Accurate than Previous Standard

The new atomic clock-- F2 cesium fountain clock-- devised by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is three times more accurate than the previous standard. The exact timing it offers could improve the reliability of electronic infrastructures.

The modern world technology greatly relies on accurate timing. The Global Positioning System (GPS) requires a precision of one billionth of a second a day, while packet-switched networks require precise time measurements with a precision of within a millionth of a second per day to enhance exactness on networks as their signals travel into the real world.

Aside from accurate timing, the improved timekeeping could also lead to technological innovation.

"If we've learned anything in the last 60 years of building atomic clocks, we've learned that every time we build a better clock, somebody comes up with a use for it that you couldn't have foreseen," said Steven Jefferts, lead designer of F2 cesium fountain clock, in a press release.

The NIST-F1 clock, which can operate at a temperature of roughly 80 degrees Fahrenheit, though also accurate, is reaching the limits of its accuracy because of errors brought by the "blackbody radiation." With NIST-F2, the limit was lowered by roughly 300 degrees to just above absolute zero. This would make errors 100 times less significant than F1.

"We'll make NIST-F2 a little bit better," Jefferts added. However, he does not expect to see greater improvements. He also noted that the next standard clock will most probably be defined by optical clocks, which split the second orders of magnitude tinier than cesium clocks.

The F2 cesium fountain clock is a device that will precisely measure a second, which is defined by the frequency of a cession atom. It vibrates 9,192,631, 770 times per second. The atomic clocks' measurements are used to calibrate official NIST clocks that contribute to the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).