DARPA Wants Portable Atomic Clocks for Better Synchronicity
DARPA’s Quantum Assisted Sensing and Readout () program aims to take high-performance atomic clocks like the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s NIST-F1, the massive room-sized clock housed in a lab in Boulder, Colo. Doing so won’t be any easier than many other challenges DARPA brings to the table, but the agency thinks advances in nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) resonators and nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamonds that exhibit single-atom-like properties could create a close analog to an atomic clock in a miniature, portable package.
Atomic clocks don’t lose seconds or even fractions of seconds over time (well, that’s not entirely true, but time lost is negligible; NIST-F1 will neither gain nor lose a second in 60 million years), and that opens up major possibilities for syncronisity. Such portable clocks would allow for communications systems that are far more secure less susceptible to jamming and GPS positioning that is unrivaled. DARPA also thinks they might lead to precision sensors unrivaled in resolution and sensitivity.
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