A team of physicists and engineers at Vector Atomic, a US manufacturer of navigation and communications equipment, recently developed an incredibly accurate and durable atomic clock. This new clock has the ability to calculate time about 1,000 times more accurately than most clocks used on ships today. The development of this advanced technology was reported by TechXplore on April 26 and was published in the journal Nature.

Due to the increasing sophistication of instruments on ships, precise timing is becoming more crucial than ever. Inaccuracies in timing can lead to significant errors in navigation, especially when using GPS or other navigation systems. This can be particularly problematic for military ships. The team at Vector Atomic decided to address this issue by developing a new atomic clock model that is both sturdy enough for use on a moving ship and highly accurate.

The new atomic clock utilizes vibrating iodine molecules and is compact in size, weighing just 26kg and similar in size to three shoeboxes. This makes it suitable for use on most ships. During testing on the HMNZS Aotearoa in the Pacific, the clock proved to be almost as accurate as when running in a lab setting. It maintained a cumulative time error of around 300 picoseconds (300 trillionths of a second) each day.

The team is currently working on further developing this innovative clock with the goal of making it small enough for use in navigation satellites. This advancement in technology has the potential to greatly improve the accuracy and reliability of timekeeping on ships and in other applications.