Keeping perfect time is far trickier than it sounds. The world’s best clocks that are used for GPS navigation, satellite communication, and testing fundamental physics depend on carefully controlled atoms and lasers.
They are incredibly precise, but also bulky, consume a lot of energy, and are difficult to operate outside specialized labs.
Now, a new mathematical study suggests that an unusual state of matter known as a time crystal could offer a more stable and potentially simpler way to measure time. It shows that time crystals could, in principle, outperform conventional quantum clock designs in maintaining precision—especially when measuring extremely short time intervals.
“Quantum time crystals are indeed genuine quantum clocks with a performance enhanced by the spontaneous breaking of time-translation symmetry,” the study authors note. Time translation symmetry simply means the rules of physics don’t change with time.
Atomic clocks are too complex
Before you delve into what the researchers did, it is important first to understand how today’s best clocks work.
Modern optical atomic clocks cool atoms or ions to extremely low temperatures using lasers. The lasers then excite electrons inside these atoms—pushing them to higher energy levels. When the electrons fall back down, they emit light at very specific frequencies.
As these optical frequencies are extraordinarily stable and much higher than the microwave signals used in older atomic clocks, they allow for much finer time measurements. However, there’s a trade-off.
These systems require constant external driving, powerful lasers, and careful isolation from environmental noise. Maintaining this stability level is technically demanding and energy-intensive.
“Owing to the level of complexity in the clock structure and its energy consumption, such devices show trade-offs whose characterization remains an open challenge,” the study authors added.
Time crystals offer a different idea. In physics, a crystal is any system with a repeating pattern in space, like the orderly arrangement of atoms in salt or diamond. A time crystal, however, repeats not in space but in time.
Its internal structure oscillates in a regular rhythm without continuously consuming energy in the usual way. First demonstrated experimentally in 2016, time crystals have intrigued physicists because their motion seems to emerge from the system’s own internal interactions.
The study authors wanted to explore whether this self-sustaining rhythm could serve as a clock.
Testing the clock function of time crystals
To test this, they built a mathematical model of a system containing 100 quantum particles. Each particle could be in one of two spin states—up or down. Even with just these two possibilities, 100 particles can combine into an enormous number of collective spin arrangements.
The researchers studied how these combined states evolved over time. They analyzed two distinct operating phases of the system. The first was a conventional phase, where the collective spins oscillate only when driven by an external laser field.
Next was the time-crystalline phase, a repeating pattern in the collective behavior emerges on its own, without ongoing external excitation.
The team then evaluated how well each phase could measure time. In practical terms, they checked how precisely the system could distinguish shorter and shorter time intervals. As they pushed toward finer resolution, the conventional phase quickly lost accuracy—the clock’s precision degraded.
In contrast, the time-crystalline phase remained significantly more robust. Its internally generated rhythm provided a steadier reference signal under the same conditions. Therefore, the study successfully shows that a time crystal’s built-in oscillation may resist precision loss better than externally driven systems.
There is still no experimental proof
The results are theoretical, and building a working time-crystal clock will require major technological progress. Real systems are affected by noise, imperfections, and environmental disturbances that are difficult to model perfectly.
Still, the study provides a strong mathematical foundation suggesting that time crystals could one day form the basis of a new type of quantum clock.
If realized experimentally, such clocks could influence many technologies ranging from secure communications to advanced navigation.
The study is published in the journal Physical Review Letters.
Rupendra Brahambhatt is an experienced writer, researcher, journalist, and filmmaker. With a B.Sc (Hons.) in Science and PGJMC in Mass Communications, he has been actively working with some of the most innovative brands, news agencies, digital magazines, documentary filmmakers, and nonprofits from different parts of the globe. As an author, he works with a vision to bring forward the right information and encourage a constructive mindset among the masses.