Grating-based lattice optical clock (G-BLOC)

精确计时是现代基础设施方方面面的关键，从国家电网到电信，到金融交易，再到全球、国家和个人导航系统。当我们打开智能手机或卫星导航系统时，我们在不知不觉中使用了利用当前商业原子钟性能的联网振荡器。这些振荡器的精确同步对于今天的技术工作是必要的，它也是研究实验室中许多精密实验的基础。正如英国《全球导航卫星系统依赖性布莱克特报告》所概述的那样，我们非常依赖精确的频率和时间传输。然而，这些信号不具有保证的安全性，要么是通过它们的所有权(GPS系统由美国空军运行)，要么是因为无线信号容易受到黑客或干扰的攻击。英国迫切需要一种时钟来源来保护核心基础设施。此外，时间和频率源精度和稳定性的阶梯式变化的发展将推动新技术的发展，包括更快的电信和更安全的通信协议，自主运输网络的精确导航，以及监测气候变化的地球观测技术。该项目汇集了一支在原子物理方面拥有数十年专业知识的英国顶尖大学团队，以及专门从事光学系统工程的行业领先者，以提供世界领先的微型光学系统，用于原子冷却、捕获和探测。这种创新的方法将产生一种光学捕获的锶原子源，适合于提供以原子标准为基准的高精度时间。最终，这项技术可以应用于完全隔离的时钟，能够提供GNSS-超越未来自动驾驶汽车和关键基础设施网络核心的计时标准。

Precision timing is key to all aspects of modern infrastructure, from the national grid, to telecommunications, to financial trading, through to global, national, and individual navigation systems.When we switch on our smartphones or satellite navigation systems, we are unconsciously using networked oscillators utilising the performance of current commercial atomic clocks. The exact sychronization of these oscillators is necessary to make much of today's technology work and it also underpins many precision experiments in research laboratories. As outlined in the UK Blackett Report on Global Navigation Satellite System dependencies, we are very dependent upon precision frequency and time transfer.However, these signals do not have guaranteed security, either through their ownership (the GPS system is run by the US Air Force) or due to the vulnerability of the wireless signal to hacking or jamming. There is an urgent need for a UK source of clocks to protect core infrastructure. Additionally, the development of a step-change in the accuracy and stability of timing and frequency sources will drive new technologies, including faster telecoms and ever more secure communication protocols, precision navigation for autonomous transport networks and earth observation techniques to monitor climate change.This project brings a team of leading UK universities with many decades expertise in atomic physics together with industry leaders specialising in optical systems engineering to deliver a world leading miniature optical system for atom cooling, trapping and probing. This innovative approach will generate a source of optically trapped strontium atoms suitable to deliver highly accurate time referenced to atomic standards. Ultimately, this technology could be employed in a fully isolated clock that is capable of providing a GNSS-surpassing timing standard at the heart of future autonomous vehicles and critical infrastructure networks.