Perhaps I have a warped sense of humor, but I did snigger somewhat when I noticed that the CLEO 14: Optical Metrology papers will narrowly miss being presented on the same day as the World Metrology Day. For a community that gave us the optical lattice clock, whose precision approaches 0.01 nanosecond per day, you would think they could have done a better job synchronising with this international celebration of measurement science. Cheap gag, I know. Sorry.

Frequency Combs I

Monday 17, May. 10.15 am to 12.00 pm

Presided by Brian Washburn (Kansas State Univ., USA), this session discusses fiber-based optical frequency combs. Metrological applications aside, I am personally interested in the possibility of using these devices as photon sources for emerging coherent WDM networks.

Lattice clocks and EUV generation

Monday 17, May. 8.00 am to 9.45 am

In a tutorial paper entitled “Optical Lattice Clocks  toward 10^-17 Uncertainty”, Hidetoshi Katori (Univ.  of Tokyo,  Japan) will review the concept and recent progress of optical lattice clocks. With the clock uncertainty of 10-17 in perspective, Katori will discuss new challenges and possible applications of such highly accurate and stable atomic clocks.

Credit: NIST

Joint CLEO/QELS Poster Session II

Wednesday, May 19

The CLEO 14: Optical Metrology section contains 18 papers on the latest research in optical frequency combs, fiber oscillators, LIGO interferometry, and other metrological sciences.

Dr David Nugent is Founder and CEO of Elucidare Limited, a boutique technology development and investment advisory business.