Chinese Scientists Successfully Develop Nuclear Optical Clock

According to a report from Xinhua News Agency, Chinese scientists have successfully developed and operated a nuclear optical clock. By utilizing self-developed vacuum ultraviolet lasers and thorium-229 doped crystals, the team achieved stable operation. This significant achievement, which extends quantum precision measurement to nuclear transitions, was recently published in the journal Nature. Experts from Tsinghua University noted that the successful development and stable operation of this nuclear optical clock signify that quantum manipulation capabilities have now reached the scale of the atomic nucleus. This advancement effectively opens up entirely new research directions for the fields of quantum precision measurement and quantum manipulation technology. While traditional atomic clocks function by measuring electron transitions, the nuclear optical clock operates by utilizing transitions between different energy levels within the atomic nucleus. This method of listening to the internal beat of the nucleus offers the potential to provide a time frequency benchmark that is more precise and practical. A research team led by faculty from Tsinghua University and the Beijing Academy of Quantum Information Sciences developed a specialized vacuum ultraviolet laser. This innovation solved the core challenge of driving nuclear energy level transitions. Together with the development of doped crystals, these efforts established the essential technical foundation for clocks.