Researchers from the University of Science and Technology of China have achieved a major breakthrough in optical clock technology, developing a strontium optical lattice clock with stability and uncertainty both surpassing the 10⁻¹⁹ level, meaning the clock would lose or gain less than one second over roughly 30 billion years.
The findings are published in the journal Metrologia.
Optical clocks are considered the most precise timekeeping devices currently available. They measure time by using the frequency of light emitted when electrons transition between energy levels in atoms.
