UV laser manipulates aluminium energy

摘要

Physicists at the Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have used the natural oscillations of two different types of charged atoms, or ions, confined together in a single trap, to produce the 'ticks' that may power a future atomic clock. The NIST group used ultraviolet lasers to transfer energy from the aluminium's vibrations to a shared 'rocking' motion of the pair of ions, and then detected the magnitude of the vibrations through the beryllium ion.