# @optica.worldwide on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DZ3DWLNCSw5
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/66922475-opticaworldwide-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/b3c9bf153d.jpg
- **Posted:** 2026-06-21T19:47:06.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Optica (@optica.worldwide) — https://gondola.cc/optica.worldwide

## Caption

We've come a long way in timekeeping, from using the #solstice to optical clocks.

By interleaving the alternating probe cycles of the two cold-ytterbium optical clocks, NIST researchers eliminated a source of aliasing noise that had dogged efforts to improve ultraprecise experimental timekeepers. 

This noise, known as Dick noise, results from “dead time,” which occurs between the periods when the clock’s #laser is probing trapped atoms. During the dead time, however, the laser and atoms are not synchronizing with each other. The periodic probing ends up aliasing the fluctuations of the laser’s frequency at certain harmonics.

The team suggested several possibilities for future reductions in quantum projection noise, which is another source of clock instability. The authors also expressed hope that the increased simplicity of the zero-dead-time clock may give it more widespread applications, such as tests of fundamental #physics.

Read more at the link in our bio.

#JuneSolstice

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## Tags

laser, physics, solstice, junesolstice

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