Working in collaboration with and partly funded by the UK's Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), a team of quantum physicists have devised new approaches that not only reduce the size of their clock, but also make it robust enough to be transported out of the laboratory and employed in the 'real world'. Quantum—or atomic—clocks are widely seen as essential for increasingly precise approaches to areas such as online communications across the world, navigation systems, or global trading in stocks, where fractions of seconds could make a huge economic difference. Atomic clocks with optical clock frequencies can be 10,000 times more accurate than their microwave counterparts, opening up the possibility of redefining the standard (SI) unit of measurement.
