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An optical atomic clock based on a highly charged ion

Nature volume 611, pages 43–47 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

Optical atomic clocks are the most accurate measurement devices ever constructed and have found many applications in fundamental science and technology1,2,3. The use of highly charged ions (HCI) as a new class of references for highest-accuracy clocks and precision tests of fundamental physics4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11 has long been motivated by their extreme atomic properties and reduced sensitivity to perturbations from external electric and magnetic fields compared with singly charged ions or neutral atoms. Here we present the realization of this new class of clocks, based on an optical magnetic-dipole transition in Ar13+. Its comprehensively evaluated systematic frequency uncertainty of 2.2 × 10−17 is comparable with that of many optical clocks in operation. From clock comparisons, we improve by eight and nine orders of magnitude on the uncertainties for the absolute transition frequency12 and isotope shift (40Ar versus 36Ar) (ref. 13), respectively. These measurements allow us to investigate the largely unexplored quantum electrodynamic (QED) nuclear recoil, presented as part of improved calculations of the isotope shift, which reduce the uncertainty of previous theory14 by a factor of three. This work establishes forbidden optical transitions in HCI as references for cutting-edge optical clocks and future high-sensitivity searches for physics beyond the standard model.

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Fig. 1: Scheme of the method for optical frequency comparison.
Fig. 2: Zeeman components used in this work for the Ar13+ clock.
Fig. 3: Instability of the ratio between the 40Ar13+ and 171Yb+ transition frequencies.

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Data availability

The traces of the frequency ratios are available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6901524. Further datasets generated and analysed during this study are available from the corresponding author on request.

Code availability

All code that has been used to generate or analyse data during this study are available from the corresponding author on request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank L. Schmöger, M. Schwarz and J. Stark for early contributions to the experimental apparatus, T. Legero for his contributions to the frequency stabilization of the HCI spectroscopy laser, H. Margolis for discussions about the analysis of the frequency data and F. Wolf for comments on the manuscript. A.S. and V.A.Y. thank I. I. Tupitsyn for discussions. The project was supported by the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, the Max Planck Society, the Max Planck-Riken-PTB Center for Time, Constants and Fundamental Symmetries, and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) through SCHM2678/5-1, SU 658/4-2, the collaborative research centres SFB 1225 ISOQUANT and SFB 1227 DQ-mat, and under Germany’s Excellence Strategy – EXC-2123 QuantumFrontiers – 390837967. These projects 17FUN07 CC4C and 20FUN01 TSCAC have received funding from the EMPIR programme co-financed by the participating states and from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no. 101019987). S.A.K. acknowledges financial support from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Steven A. King

    Present address: Oxford Ionics, Begbroke, UK

  2. Peter Micke

    Present address: CERN, Geneva, Switzerland

  3. Tobias Leopold

    Present address: LPKF Laser & Electronics AG, Garbsen, Germany

  4. These authors contributed equally: Steven A. King and Lukas J. Spieß

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, Braunschweig, Germany

    Steven A. King, Lukas J. Spieß, Peter Micke, Alexander Wilzewski, Tobias Leopold, Erik Benkler, Richard Lange, Nils Huntemann, Andrey Surzhykov, Vladimir A. Yerokhin & Piet O. Schmidt

  2. Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik, Heidelberg, Germany

    Peter Micke & José R. Crespo López-Urrutia

  3. Technische Universität Braunschweig, Braunschweig, Germany

    Andrey Surzhykov

  4. Institut für Quantenoptik, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Germany

    Piet O. Schmidt

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Contributions

S.A.K., L.J.S., P.M., T.L., E.B., J.R.C.L.-U. and P.O.S. developed the experimental setup. S.A.K., L.J.S., P.M., A.W., R.L. and N.H. carried out the experiments. S.A.K., L.J.S., A.W. and E.B. analysed the data. J.R.C.L.-U. and P.O.S. conceived and supervised the study. A.S. and V.A.Y. performed the theoretical calculations. S.A.K., L.J.S., A.S. and P.O.S. wrote the initial manuscript, with contributions from P.M. and J.R.C.L.-U. All authors discussed the results and reviewed the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Lukas J. Spieß or Piet O. Schmidt.

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Nature thanks Victor Flambaum, Bijaya Kumar Sahoo and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Peer reviewer reports are available.

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Extended data figures and tables

Extended Data Table 1 Measured frequency ratios and absolute frequencies
Full size table
Extended Data Table 2 Investigated systematic shifts (Δν) and corresponding 1-σ uncertainties (σ) for the Ar13+ clock
Full size table

Supplementary information

Supplementary Methods

This file contains a detailed analysis of the systematic shifts of the frequency measurements, further information on the performed calculations and Supplementary Figures S1 and S2 and Supplementary Tables S1 and S2.

Peer Review File

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King, S.A., Spieß, L.J., Micke, P. et al. An optical atomic clock based on a highly charged ion. Nature 611, 43–47 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05245-4

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