ERC grant scientists have decided to centre their efforts on making a clock that will be a revolution.

EU-funded scientists have embarked on a major effort to construct a nuclear atomic clock, a device that would represent a major improvement over the atomic clocks used to set time at present.

The work of this group of European scientists is being made possible thanks to a EUR 1.3 million, 5 year 'starting grant' from the European Research Council (ERC) to Thorsten Schumm of the Institute of Atomic and Subatomic Physics at Vienna University of Technology (TU Vienna) in Austria. The ERC funding comes on top of a START Award granted to Dr Schumm at the end of 2009 by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF).

The radio-isotope 229-thorium is at the heart of the project. It is hoped to apply the unusual properties of 229-thorium's nucleus to the construction of a nuclear atomic clock. Nowadays, a second is defined as 9,192,631,770 oscillations of a light wave. This causes specific changes in the electron shell of an atom of caesium, a fact which is exploited in atomic clocks that are used to set our time standards.

If the team is successful, the resulting nuclear atomic clock would also enable the accuracy of our time standards to be significantly increased.

The project has already started building his research team and work is underway to build a  laboratory that meets the high standards needed for his work with lasers (i.e. the temperature is kept extremely stable and vibration levels are low) and has radiation protection approval. The lab should be ready by October 2010.