NIST launched world's most accurate clock, NIST-F2

The US Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the first week of April 2014 launched a new atomic clock, named as NIST-F2. The clock has been designed to serve the new US civilian time and frequency, along with the current NIST-F1 standard.

NIST has claimed that the NIST-F2 would neither gain nor lose a second in about 300 million years as it is three times as accurate as its predecessor NIST-F1. NIST-F1 has served as the standard, since 1999. Both these clocks use a fountain of cesium atoms to determine the exact length of a second.

The scientists of NIST claimed that according to the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) data (NIST-F2) is the world’s most accurate time standard. BIPM is located near Paris, France. To produce the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), the international standard time, the agency collates data from atomic clocks.

In the present world many technologies like cellular telephones, Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite receivers and the electric power grid rely on the high accuracy of atomic clocks.

About NIST
The National Institute of Standards and Technology's was founded in 1901 and at present is a part of the US Department of Commerce. It is one of the nation's oldest physical science laboratories. Congress established the agency to remove a major handicap to US industrial competitiveness at the time—a second-rate measurement infrastructure that lagged behind the capabilities of England, Germany, and other economic rivals.