The first ever SIG-TFN meeting took place on 16-17 October in Amsterdam, kindly hosted by the University of Amsterdam at their research and innovation hub – Science Park. SIG-TFN was established in February 2024 with the aim of providing a forum for the community working around Time and Frequency distribution across Research and Education Networks.
The meeting had close to 40 on-site participants and over 30 joining online. Focusing on metrology and the science of accurate time, the group had the aim of looking at some challenging use cases from redefining the System of Units (SI), to detecting gravitational waves, testing new physics and supporting European-wide commercial services such as very accurate time stamps for banks to validate high-frequency trading.
The first day started off with Guy Roberts (GÉANT), part of of the SIG’s Steering Committee, welcoming participants and going over the two working groups within SIG-TFN: T/F Sustainability (led by Richard Lui) and C-TFN technical specification (led by Guy Roberts). More information on the aims of the working groups and team members can be found here.
Jacques-Olivier Gaudron from the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) presented on the status of fibre optic links at the NPL. It was followed by an overview of the design of the Northwestern Link Lille-Brussels-Amsterdam-Braunschweig and potential network topologies for C-TFN by Jeroen Koelemeij from the Free University of Amsterdam.
After Florian Shreck introduced optical clocks in Amsterdam such as the iqClock & QDNL clock project, the first day ended with an insightful lab tour. Participants were able to see the atomic clock part of the UvA Institute of Physics Quantum Information Lab. Alongside this, a showcase of innovative ways of creating lasers with ions was given. The blue light generated by Strontium (Sr) lasers used in metrology can be seen in one the pictures below.
The second day opened with an overview from Josef Vojtech &Vladimir Smotlacha (CESNET) about Czech infrastructure for Time & Frequency and their use of the White Rabbit network – an open-source timing technology initially developed at CERN. Maciej Lipinski from CERN continued with update on the White Rabbit’s status and roadmap for the future.
The meeting continued with Krzysztof Turza from PSNC highlighting the recent completed installation of the pathfinder link between Braunschweig (PTB, Germany) and Poznań (PSNC, Poland) on the 23rd of September. The pathfinder link represents one of the first links of the entire network of European connections dedicated for time and frequency transfer (promoted by GÉANT as part of the C-TFN). Additional information on the pathfinder project can be found here.
Cecilia Clivati and Davide Calonico from INRIM went on to review the Italian Quantum Backbone, mentioning their developments on time and frequency metrology, quantum communications, and sensing over optical fibers. Further discussions took place on EC future funding possbilities led by Lukasz Bonenberg from the European Commission Joint Research Center (EC JRC) and an update from Richard Lui on the SIG’s sustainability working group.
Following a productive first meeting, strong interest in future meetings, and over 100 mailing list subscribers – a new, strong and passionate scientific community has been born within GÉANT.
A big thank you to all those who joined both in-person and online, and a special thank to the University of Amsterdam who made this possible.
Subscribe to the SIG-TFN mailing list here to make sure you don’t miss out on future events and developments: https://lists.geant.org/sympa/subscribe/sig-tfn
About SIG-TFN
SIG-TFN (Time and Frequency Network) aims to gather and exchange experiences, ideas and knowledge on the development, deployment, testing and standardisation of Time and Frequency solutions, leading to the development of a Core-Time and Frequency Network (C-TFN). The SIG has an advisory role to GEANT GPPC and relevant project management/coordination function.
