Physicist James C. Bergquist, a Fellow at the National
Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) whose research helped usher
in the age of optical atomic clocks, has been elected a member of the National
Academy of Sciences. Election to the academy is considered one of the highest
honors that can be accorded a U.S. scientist or engineer. New members are elected
by current members in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements
in original research.
James C. Bergquist. Credit: NIST
Bergquist is a world leader in laser science and optical frequency standards,
the basis for the next generation of atomic clocks. Bergquist’s experimental
clock based on a single mercury ion (electrically charged atom) is the world’s
most precise timepiece, and would neither gain nor lose 1 second in 2 billion
years. The mercury ion clock was the first clock to have a smaller measurement
uncertainty than atomic clocks based on cesium atoms, which are still the international
standard. (See “Mercury Atomic Clock Keeps Time with Record Accuracy.”)
Bergquist has pioneered a long string of advances in measurement science with
broad applications, including the development of lasers with the world’s
narrowest linewidth (band of emitted frequencies) and techniques required for
quantum information processing, among many other breakthroughs.
A Colorado native, Bergquist has worked at the NIST Boulder Labs since 1978.
He received his doctorate in physics from the University of Colorado. Bergquist’s
previous honors include three Department of Commerce gold medals, the American
Physical Society’s Herbert P. Broida Prize and Arthur Schawlow Prize in
Laser Science, NIST’s Edward Uhler Condon Award and Samuel Wesley Stratton
Award, the Optical Society of America’s William F. Meggers Award, and
the IEEE’s I. I. Rabi Award. He joins seven other NIST scientists who
are members of the NAS, a private organization of scientists and engineers established
in 1863 dedicated to the furtherance of science and its use for the general
welfare. See the NAS release, “72 New Members Chosen By Academy.”