Optical Clocks at Sea

Understand

Deployed optical clocks will improve positioning for navigational autonomy, provide remote time standards for geophysical monitoring and distributed coherent sensing, allow time synchronization of remote quantum networks, and provide operational redundancy for national time standards.

• While laboratory optical clocks now reach timing inaccuracies below 1E-18, transportable versions of these high-performing clocks have limited utility due to their size, environmental sensitivity, and cost.
• Here we report the development of optical clocks with the requisite combination of size, performance, and environmental insensitivity for operation on mobile platforms.
• The 35 L clock combines a molecular iodine spectrometer, fiber frequency comb, and control electronics.