Congratulations to two researchers from ROA (Real Instituto y Observatorio de la Armada), Spain on their successful applications for Researcher Mobility Grants in the 2020 call. José Manuel Suárez Ramírez de Arellano will spend 6 months at NPL researching ARTIQ control systems for optical clocks, while Jesús Romero González will spend 12 months at OBSPARIS… Read More

An engineer working on methods for long-term laser stabilisation within the ROCIT project has contributed software to the open source GitHub project. The stabiliser is a CPU-based dual-channel fast servo (general purpose PID controller) that is suitable for use in commercialising quantum technologies as well as in fundamental physics research.… Read More

The ROCIT consortium held our M18 progress meeting on 2nd and 3rd November 2020. Despite having to be held virtually, it was a productive meeting including technical discussions on the work carried out and next steps, as well as a review of the impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on progress. Although there have inevitably… Read More

Long-term measurements of the 87Sr optical clock frequency at PTB have provided an improved limit on the coupling of the gravitational potential of the Sun to the proton-to-electron mass ratio μ. The analysis, performed on a series of 42 measurements of the transition frequency over three years from 2017 to 2019, is published in Physical… Read More

ROCIT researcher Anne Curtis from NPL was recently interviewed by science writer Rachel Nuwer for an article on the redefinition of the SI second. The final article, entitled “Inside the incredibly slow race to reinvent time” was published as the cover story in the 19th August edition of New Scientist. and mentions the efforts underway… Read More

William Bowden from NPL recently gave a virtual talk at UMK. Entitled “Strontium optical lattice clocks at NPL”, this covered a recent measurement of the absolute frequency of the Sr clock transition as well as the work being carried out within the ROCIT project to improve the reliability of the system. William also presented recent… Read More

Our second formal collaboration agreement is with the consortium for the EMPIR-funded TiFOON project. The overall objective of that project is to advance fibre-based frequency transfer capabilities in Europe towards a sustainable, universal tool for time and frequency metrology, matching the unprecedented accuracy of modern optical clocks. Of particular interest to the ROCIT consortium is… Read More

We have signed a Letter of Agreement with AIST, NMIJ, who join the ROCIT project as our first collaborator. AIST will collaborate on methods for improving the robustness and automation of optical lattice clocks, as well as joining our international clock comparison campaigns using via GPS-based satellite links.… Read More

The M9 meeting for the ROCIT consortium was hosted by INRIM on February 19th – 20th 2020. This was a great opportunity to catch up with colleagues and discuss progress, as well as to finalise plans for the international optical clock comparison campaign planned for March.… Read More

A new optical fibre link has been set up from Paris to Turin to extend the reach of the European optical clock network. The full characterisation of this link is still in progress, but once optimised this will enable optical clocks in four different European laboratories to be compared at a level commensurate with the… Read More