Atomic clocks for spacecrafts

Among the existing clocks pendulum, digital, quartz and electronic etc, the atomic clock is considered to be the most precise. Cohen-Tannoudji had specialised in cooling and trapping of atoms with laser light that later led to a deeper understanding of the perfection of interaction between light and matter for which he was jointly awarded Nobel prize in Physics in 1997.

Cohen pointed out that atoms at very low temperature could be observed for a longer period with more precision and this observation had led to higher precision atomic clocks which was just one of the uses of studying cool atoms. With the study of cool atoms, Cohen said it was possible to attain Bose-Einstein condensation phenomenon three years ago which could give rise to atomic lasers8217;. The 65-year-old Cohen-Tannoudji, who is currently with the College de France and Ecole Normlae Superieure, Paris, had earlier shown that very narrow level-crossing resonances could be observed in atomic ground states non-excited states, thus enabling the detection of very weak magnetic fields. Later talking to newspersons, the Nobel laureate said the governments of the developing countries should allot more funds for fundamental research as they form the strong base for science and technology.