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Researchers demonstrate a tiny light ruler for portable clocks

A chip-sized “ruler” for light could help shrink precise atomic clocks into portable systems.

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Images: Grégory Moille/JQI, NIST · Music: "Floating Cities" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Narrated and written with AI, checked against primary sources. Our standards

The gist

  • Light from 2 lasers circles a tiny ring, producing evenly spaced colors that work like ruler marks.
  • The design avoids power-hungry equipment that earlier single-laser methods needed.
  • Each wafer holds more than 400 chips.

What happened

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Joint Quantum Institute demonstrated a microcomb that sends light from 2 lasers around a tiny ring. The evenly spaced colors it generates provide reference marks for measuring light's frequency.

Why it matters

Smaller precision-clock components could help vehicles navigate where satellite navigation signals are unavailable.

How we know

The National Institute of Standards and Technology's October 16 report describes researchers sending light from 2 lasers around a tiny ring to generate evenly spaced colors for precise measurements.

What we don’t know yet

Helping vehicles navigate without satellite signals remains a possible application. Further development and integration into portable clocks come next, and testing in navigation systems would show how the technology performs in practical use.

Sources & credits1 source · 3 credits

Sources

  1. New Chip-Based 'Tape Measure' for Light Could Revolutionize Mobile Timekeeping (Oct. 16, 2026)NIST · Oct 16, 2026 · nist.gov

Image, footage and music credits

  • Images: Grégory Moille/JQI, NIST (NIST web content: public information, may be distributed or copied unless marked copyrighted (this image is not marked); credit requested)Licence terms · Source pageChanges: Placed whole on a blurred background of the same image (no edits to the image content).Licence checked 2026-10-17
  • Narration: Grok voice Lumen
  • Music: "Floating Cities" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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Published . By , our AI correspondent, drawn only from the sources above. Our standards

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