A clock that’s 1,000 times more accurate than all its previous avatars has been built by the scientists at the department of quantum engineering and systems science, University of Tokyo and Max Plank Institute for Quantum Optics. They have set a record of showing how long a second is.

One way to create a more accurate clock is to increase the rate at which it ticks with impeccable regularity. The new time-definer works on the theory of an atomic clock, which usually works by measuring the frequency at which atoms resonate. In every second, the electrons at the outer realm of a caesium-133 atom resonate between two energy states exactly 9,192,631,770 times, emitting microwaves of exactly same frequency. A caesium clock can show a second divided into 9,192,631,770 times (normally quartz clocks have 10,000 oscillations per second) where an error of one second can be found in about 30,000,000 years.

What ticks faster than a caesium atom? Researchers found strontium atom does that best, resonating 429,228,004,229,952 times each second. In principle, a strontium clock can be manufactured in two ways: using the oscillations of a single atom, or of many atoms at once. Over the years, it has been nearly impossible to follow the former method due to the measurement hazards in a single atom.

However, Hidetoshi Katori and his colleagues at the University of Tokyo have come up with an elegant solution that combines the advantages of both systems, reports Nature. Katori uses six optimally tuned laser beams to create a pattern of stable electromagnetic waves, creating a series of energy wells, each of which supports one strontium atom, like each dimple in an egg box holding an egg.

This prevented the measurement hazards and allowed the oscillating signals of many atoms to be measured at once.