BAE Systems deal revealed as CryoClock moves into Lot Fourteen

The SA company behind the world’s most precise clock is setting up in Adelaide’s innovation hub just in time for a big new contract to be announced.

Cryoclock director Andre Luiten in the new laboratory at Lot Fourteen. Picture: Roy VanDerVegt.

The South Australian company behind the world’s most precise clock has arrived at Lot Fourteen, just in time to celebrate a multimillion-dollar contract to improve Australia’s radar defences.

On Friday afternoon Premier Steven Marshall will officially open CryoClock’s new design and production facility at the old Royal Adelaide Hospital site.

He says the successful start-up company is an ideal addition to the Lot Fourteen global innovation precinct.

“At Lot Fourteen we are supercharging innovation, investment and the creation of high-value career and job opportunities for South Australians, particularly in in our focus sectors of hi-tech, space and defence,” he said.

“Cryoclock ticks all of these boxes, as the company behind the world’s most precise clock and precision time and frequency solutions for use in defence, space, quantum computing and critical infrastructure.”

Cryoclock director Andre Luiten in the new laboratory at Lot Fourteen, he is seen holding a Sapphire crystal that sends a stable frequency to radars of the ionosphere for calibration. Picture: Roy VanDerVegt.

CryoClock co-founder and managing director Professor Andre Luiten said growing and exanding into new premises from the original University of Adelaide laboratory across the road was “absolutely spectacular”.

“I’m proud to be providing jobs making things people want to pay for,” he said.

“We have customers with smiles on their faces handing over money.

“It’s strange. You rarely get that in science so it’s satisfying in an entirely different way.”

The company employs nine staff but Prof Luiten expects that number to double every year.

Also on Friday, Defence Minister Linda Reynolds will announce a $4.8m contract involving CryoClock and BAE Systems.

Minister for Defence Linda Reynolds. Picture: Mick Tsikas

The two companies will use ultra-high-precision clock technology using real sapphire crystals to improve detection for the Jindalee Operational Radar Network, known as JORN. The clock technology loses just one second every 40 million years.

“The sapphire clock is more precise than current available commercial timing systems,” Senator Reynolds said.

“When used within a radar system like the JORN, it has the potential to improve detection performance across Australia’s northern approaches.

“CryoClock’s leading-edge technology also has the potential to be used beyond defence, including in the communications, advanced computing and scientific research sectors.”

The award-winning technology at the heart of CryoClock is a pure sapphire crystal that “rings like a bell” and can be used to generate extremely stable radio and microwave signals when kept at low temperatures (-269C).

JORN provides 24-hour military surveillance of Australia’s northern approaches at ranges of up to 3000km.

The sapphire clock will help it detect smaller objects with greater sensitivity.

COUNTING DOWN

1 millisecond is about the accuracy of the clocks that are used to time Formula 1 cars, or the time it takes for a honey bee’s wing to flap

1 microsecond, or a millionth of a second, is the duration of the fastest camera flashes

1 nanosecond, or a billionth of a second, is the amount of time that a modern computer spends doing a single simple calculation

1 picosecond, or a trillionth of a second, is the accuracy of the world’s best atomic clocks

1 femtosecond, or a thousand trillionth of a second, is the accuracy of the CryoClock Sapphire Clock.

SOURCE: CryoClock.