Marco Schioppo

Marco Schioppo is a Principal Scientist leading the development of state-of-the-art ultrastable lasers for optical frequency metrology at NPL. He works in tandem with the team operating the frequency combs at NPL to realise the so called “Universal Synthesiser”, a system capable of generating and disseminating the most stable light in the UK to users at NPL, and in the future, beyond NPL.

The Universal Synthesiser delivers ultrastable light to the atomic clock teams at NPL and enable them to realise state-of-the-art measurement precision. The Universal Synthesiser also supports high accuracy comparison of optical and microwave standards, the operation of the UK time scale and of the optical fibre links connecting NPL to other European metrological institutes. Marco is also developing next-generation ultrastable lasers in the new Advanced Quantum Metrology Laboratory at NPL in the framework of the Quantum Test and Evaluation project.

Marco joined NPL at the beginning of 2017, after completing three years of postdoctoral research on the development of ultrastable lasers for a state-of-the-art Yb optical lattice clock at National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), in Boulder CO, USA. He gained his PhD degree on a transportable Sr optical lattice clock at the University of Florence in Italy, where he also previously undertook his undergraduate studies.

Marco is a member of the Institute of Physics (IOP).

He was awarded a European Marie Skłodowska-Curie research fellowship in 2016.

Marco has been awarded the 2022 EFTF Young Scientist Award for his contributions to ultrastable lasers and measurement precision in optical frequency metrology, which have impacted on the development and characterisation of optical atomic clocks.

Areas of interest 

• Development of ultrastable lasers for optical frequency metrology
• Dissemination of ultrastable light through optical fibres
• Improvement of frequency stability of optical and microwave clocks
• Fundamental science enabled by state-of-the-art optical frequency metrology

Key publications 

1. Comparing ultrastable lasers at 7×10⁻¹⁷ fractional frequency instability through a 2220 km optical fibre network 
   M. Schioppo, J. Kronjäger, A. Silva, R. Ilieva, J. W. Paterson, C. F. A. Baynham, W. Bowden, I. R. Hill, R. Hobson, A. Vianello, M. Dovale-Álvarez, R. A. Williams, G. Marra, H. S. Margolis, A. Amy-Klein, O. Lopez, E. Cantin, H. Álvarez-Martínez, R. Le Targat, P. E. Pottie, N. Quintin, T. Legero, S. Häfner, U. Sterr, R. Schwarz, S. Dörscher, C. Lisdat, S. Koke, A. Kuhl, T. Waterholter, E. Benkler and G. Grosche
   Nat. Commun. 13, 212 (2022)
2. Improving the Q factor of an optical atomic clock using quantum nondemolition measurement
   W. Bowden, A. Vianello, I. R. Hill, M. Schioppo, and R. Hobson
   Phys. Rev. X 10, 041052 (2020)
3. Atomic clock performance enabling geodesy below the centimeter level
   W. F. McGrew, X. Zhang, R. J. Fasano, S. A. Schaffer, K. Beloy, D. Nicolodi, R. C. Brown, N. Hinkley, G. Milani, M. Schioppo, T. H. Yoon and A. D. Ludlow
   Nature 564, 87-93 (2018)
4. Ultrastable optical clock with two cold-atom ensembles
   M. Schioppo, R. C. Brown, W. F. McGrew, N. Hinkley, R. J. Fasano, K. Beloy, T. H. Yoon, G. Milani, J. A. Sherman, N. B. Phillips, C. W. Oates and A. D. Ludlow
   Nat. Photonics 11, 48-52 (2017)
5. An atomic clock with 10^-18 instability
   N. Hinkley, J. A. Sherman, N. B. Phillips, M. Schioppo, N. D. Lemke, K. Beloy, M. Pizzocaro, C. W. Oates and A. D. Ludlow
   Science 341, 1215 (2013)

Email Marco Schioppo

LinkedIn 

Google Scholar 

ORCID