- When?
- October 27, 2025 8:00 PM
- Where?
- Academiegebouw
What?
On the 27th of October at 8pm in the academiegebouw the Hendrik de Waard Foundation hosts the next HdW lecture by Kjeld Beeks! You can get your FREE ticket here
From GPS to quantum experiments, precise timekeeping drives modern life. Atomic clocks are already extraordinarily accurate, yet researchers are now aiming higher with a nuclear clock that measures time using the motion of an atomic nucleus. The isotope thorium-229, uniquely possessing a laser-accessible low-energy state, lies at the centre of this effort. When embedded in transparent crystals and probed with vacuum-ultraviolet light, this nuclear transition provides a reference less sensitive to environmental noise than electronic transitions.
Kjeld Beeks is an experimental physicist working at the intersection of nuclear quantum optics, quantum metrology, crystal growth, solid-state physics, and electron–nucleus interactions. He has collaborated on international projects at institutions including JILA, PTB, CERN ISOLDE, RIKEN, and SPring-8, and has co-developed experimental platforms for VUV detection, cryogenic crystal spectroscopy, and nuclear decay measurements.