Quantum physicists tap into entanglement to improve the precision of optical atomic clocks

Imagine walking into a room where several different grandfather clocks hang on the walls, each ticking at a different pace. Quantum physicists at the University of Colorado Boulder and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have essentially recreated that room at the scale of atoms and electrons. The team’s advancement could pave the way for new kinds of optical atomic clocks, devices that track the passage of time by measuring the natural “ticking” of atoms.