PHASE-ZERO

Accurate timing knowledge has a variety of compelling use cases in the context of security and defence applications as well as in the wider economy. Improved access to clocks and reliable, accurate timing references have wide applicability across a number of systems and processes such as the urgent demand for clocks for the financial sector.

The development of commercial optical clocks would reduce trading delays and limit the vulnerability of the financial markets. Strontium optical frequency clocks have demonstrated superior performance to microwave frequency atomic clocks, improving timing precision by 100x, offering a unique solution.

However, the highly accurate signal from the lattice clock is not useful unless it can be distributed. On transmitting the signal into an optical fibre, vibrations in the fibre render the output frequency signal too inaccurate to remain useful as a time reference.

The aim of this project is to engineer a practical and scalable phase-noise cancellation setup that can be used to distribute signals to multiple users at each timing node. PHASE-ZERO will demonstrate an engineered approach to noise cancellation, while improving on competitive offerings by delivering a more integrated system, resilient and better suited to end user applications.