NPL meets the Princess Royal at SPIE Photonex

2 minute read

As the UK’s National Metrology Institute (NMI), NPL provides the UK’s quantum industry the measurement capability to enable the safe and secure development of new quantum technologies. At SPIE Photonex 2023, NPL engaged with industry on the ways we can support the development and validation of progress in new product development.  

During the event, NPL was visited by Her Royal Highness, the Princess Royal where she spoke with Dr Emma Haynes, Dr Melanie Hardman, Robert Dandridge and Dr Mohsin Haji to hear about our work in quantum.    

Melanie Hardman, Product Manager, NPL said: “It was delightful to meet the Princess Royal at SPIE and have the opportunity to speak about NPL’s history, our role in the National Quantum Technologies Programme (NQTP). We presented her Royal Highness with an NPL SI themed tea set, which represents our role in developing and maintaining the national primary measurement standards. 

NPL’s experts also met  Carol Monaghan MP, Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Photonics and Quantum.  

At the event, attendees had the opportunity to hear directly from two NPL experts about their research. 

 Mohsin Haji, Principal Scientist, spoke on “new holdover atomic clocks for PNT applications”.  His focus was the recent developments of state-of-the-art and next-generation holdover atomic clocks, supported by newly established supply chains of components and sub-systems and the global landscape of holdover atomic clocks for implementation in a variety of PNT applications such as certain critical national infrastructure and defence systems. 

Jonathan Silver, Senior Scientist, spoke on the “next generation of atomic clock using integrated photonics”. He delivered a talk on Next-Generation Atomic Clocks using Integrated Photonics. The talk explained the need for three types of clocks required for Position Navigation and Timing. 

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