Atomic size measurements like van der Waals and covalent radii are central to chemistry, but are they grounded in reality?

Optical atomic clocks are the most accurate measuring instruments ever built and are becoming key tools for basic and applied research, for example to test the constancy of natural constants or for ...

For many years, cesium atomic clocks have been reliably keeping time around the world. But the future belongs to even more accurate clocks: optical atomic clocks. In a few years' time, they could ...

The first generation of quantum computers are on the horizon, fabricated from quantum hardware platforms that may soon be able to tackle certain tasks that cannot be performed or modelled with ...

For more than five decades, quantum superposition states that are coherent have been studied and used in applications such as photon interferometry and Ramsey spectroscopy 1. However, entangled states ...

There's a new record holder for the most accurate clock in the world. Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have improved their atomic clock based on a trapped ...

The results are an important stress test for theories and future experiments in atomic physics. 1.97007 femtometre (quadrillionths of a metre): That’s how unimaginably tiny the radius of the atomic ...

Highly charged ions are a common form of matter in the cosmos, where they are found, for example, in the sun or other stars. They are so called because they have lost many electrons and therefore have ...