The Nuclear Clock: Scaling Quantum Systems for Precision Metrology
Keeping Time with Nuclear Transitions
Jun Ye
Fellow, JILA
Professor, University of Colorado Boulder
Sponsored by PSW Science Member Frederica Darema
Video
About the Lecture
Laser and quantum sciences have fueled revolutionary developments in atomic, molecular, and fundamental physics. Scaling up quantum systems to ever increasing sizes promises to open new discovery opportunities. Quantum technology has brought many thousands of atoms to coherence times of minutes. It is now also knocking on the door of nuclear physics, heralded by the recent breakthrough of quantum-state-resolved laser spectroscopy of the thorium-229 nuclear transition. Using a precision frequency comb in the vacuum-ultraviolet, it has been possible to coherently excite the thorium nuclear clock transition and connect its frequency directly to today’s most precise atomic clock. This unification of precision metrology and nuclear physics is sparking new ideas for testing fundamental physics and promises nuclear-based clocks with billions of nuclear absorbers and time keeping capabilities that exceed today’s best atomic clocks.
Selected Reading
More information and publications are available here: https://jila.colorado.edu/yelabs
See also on the page of Scientific Publications, our latest Nature paper (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07839-6) on nuclear clock and a few representative examples of press coverage.
About the Speaker
Jun Ye is a Physicist with NIST and JILA, a joint research institute of NIST and the University of Colorado, and an Adjoint Professor of Physics at University of Colorado Boulder. He leads several quantum research initiatives on the CU Boulder campus, including the CUbit Quantum Initiative and the Entangled Science and Engineering (Q-SEnSE) center funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation.
Jun is a pioneer in laser science and technology, next-generation experimental atomic clocks and ultracold quantum gases. His work plumbs the connections between precision measurement and quantum state control, from which many future quantum technologies will grow. Among other notable achievements, Jun invented world-leading experimental atomic clocks that tick at optical frequencies and developed clocks based on the strontium atom as a candidate for a future redefinition of the SI second. These strontium lattice atomic clocks are so precise that they can be used to measure gravity, motion, magnetic fields, and many other quantities based on tiny changes in clock frequency. Jun’s “3D” atomic clock has enabled detecting the emergence of many-body physics, which will help scientists control interacting quantum matter to boost the performance of atomic clocks, many other types of sensors, and quantum information systems. Jun also pioneered the field of quantum gases of molecules, and he has made numerous advancements in optical frequency combs and ultrafast laser-based tools. And he has recently demonstrated ultra precise clocks based on nuclear rather than atomic transitions, which will enable experiments on fundamental physical principles heretofore beyond the reach of experimental techniques.
Jun is an author on many technical and scholarly publications, and he in an inventor in four patents on laser technologies.
Among other honors and awards, Jun is a fellow of the American Physical Society, the Optical Society of America, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He is the recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering, the Arthur S. Flemming Award, the NIST Samuel W. Stratton Award, the OSA William F. Meggers Award, the Carl Zeiss Award; five Department of Commerce Gold Medals, the European Time and Frequency Forum Award, the APS Rabi Prize and the APS Ramsey Prize, IEEE Rabi Award, the Micius Quantum Prize, the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, the Vannevar Bush Fellowship, the Herbert Walther Award, and the Niels Bohr Institute Medal of Honour.
Jun earned a BS in Applied Physics at Jiao Tong University in Shanghai, an MS in Physics at the University of New Mexico and a PhD in Physics at the University of Colorado.