First dreamed up decades ago, the world's first nuclear clocks are set to improve quickly, becoming more precise and aiding the hunt for dark matter.

Two independent teams of scientists have created the first functional clocks that can keep ultraprecise time using the nuclei ...

By using a rare thorium nucleus as a timekeeper, physicists have demonstrated the first working nuclear clock, a device that could lead to even more precise clocks and new ways to search for dark ...

Nuclear clocks should be more robust and portable than the best available clocks today because nuclei are hard to perturb and are protected in a crystal. Creating a nuclear clock is “a dream come ...

New standards in nuclear physics An international research team led by the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI has measured the radius of the nucleus of muonic helium-3 with unprecedented precision. The ...

Nuclear effect The deformed shape of the ytterbium-173 nucleus (right) makes it possible to excite the clock transition with a relatively low-power laser. The same transition is forbidden (left) if ...

Few names are as closely linked with the atomic bomb as Albert Einstein's. Mention nuclear weapons and, sooner or later, ...

Physicists working on the MIGDAL experiment reported the first direct evidence of the Migdal effect in January 2026, ...

(koto_feja/Getty Images) A breakthrough in chronometry decades in the making could redefine the limits of how we keep time. Using atoms of thorium-229, physicists have built functional clocks based ...

But physicists have long dreamt of even better clocks that run on atomic nuclei, which are less sensitive to environmental disturbances. According to new research, that dream might soon become reality ...

Laser isotope separation exploits the slight differences in atomic energy levels between isotopes to achieve selective excitation and ionisation. By tuning narrowband or broadband lasers to ...

Blain M. 1991. “Rhetorical Practice in an Anti‐Nuclear Weapons Campaign.” Peace & Change, 16(4), pp.355-378. Candela A. (2017) “Sorting out nuclear concerns: The Australian uranium debate from Jervis ...