Quantum physicists at CU Boulder and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have essentially recreated that room at the scale of atoms and electrons. The team’s advancement could pave the way for new kinds of optical atomic clocks, devices that track the passage of time by measuring the natural “ticking” of atoms.

The group’s new clock is made from a few dozen strontium atoms trapped in a lattice pattern. To improve the device’s performance, the team generated a type of ghostly interaction, known as quantum entanglement, between groups of those atoms—basically squishing four different kinds of clocks into the same time-keeping apparatus.

“What we’re able to do is divide the same length of time into smaller and smaller units,” said Adam Kaufman, senior author of the new study and a fellow at JILA, a joint research institute between CU Boulder and NIST. “That acceleration could allow us to track time more precisely.”