Speaker
Description
We are developing optical clocks based on radium. Though unstable it has potential for low instability clocks as radium's high mass reduces sensitivity to leading systematic uncertainties. The wavelengths needed for a radium clock are in relatively photonic technology friendly parts of the spectrum, making it appealing for a robust and compact optical clock. The nuclear instability is an asset to address the recently posed question: do atoms age? This could be addressed by running a clock for time scales comparable to an isotope's half-life and looking for drift in the clock transition's frequency. We have realized a clock with radium-226 (1600 y half-life). We'll discuss laser cooling and trapping of radium-224 (3.6 d half-life) and radium-225 (15 d half-life) and progress towards making clocks with these isotopes. Radium-225 is appealing as it has a nuclear spin of 1/2 which makes it less sensitive to magnetic field noise than spin zero isotopes.
