Optical atomic clock becomes portable

You imagine a clock to be different - yet the optical table with its many complicated set-ups really is one. Optical clocks like the strontium clock in the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) in Braunschweig could be the atomic clocks of the future; some of them though are already ten times more precise and stable than the best primary caesium atomic clocks. Now they might also become more compact and even portable, maybe in the future even travel to space. PTB scientists have shown how some fundamental difficulties, which a more simple set-up had previously hindered, could be avoided. They have written about this in the current edition of the journal 'Physical Review Letters'...

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