Navigation

National infrastructures critically rely on Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) and GPS. The widespread power of and dependence on GPS also causes vulnerabilities to cyber threats and attacks. Precision optical clocks are key in protecting against these cyber threats.

Advanced clocks capable of exhibiting sub-picosecond timing instabilities are becoming necessary for resilient positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT), distributed radar networks, very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI), and distributed database networking and time protocols.

State-of-the-art optical clocks meet the stringent timing stability requirements of these applications but are currently constrained to laboratory environments due to the low technology readiness level (TRL) of many, if not all, of their necessary subsystems. These critical subsystems include optical frequency combs (OFCs), narrow-linewidth lasers, low-noise control electronics, and atomic/molecular physics packages.

Recent developments at Vescent have led to the release of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) products that can be easily combined to make a high-performance optical molecular clock.