Award for Patrick Gill

Abstract

On behalf of the journal I would like to congratulate Professor Patrick Gill, a long-serving member of the Editorial Board for Measurement Science and Technology, who has been awarded the prestigious Institute of Physics Young medal and prize for world-leading contributions to optical frequency metrology. He is recognized as the UK leader in the quest for very accurate optical clocks.Professor Gill's work is concerned with the development of cold trapped ion systems as optical frequency standards with potential for future redefinition of the SI second, and the frequency metrology needed to relate optical and microwave standards to high accuracy. Interested readers may wish to read a short review of the wider state-of-the-art development of single cold trapped ion frequency standards, coupled with a more detailed account of results achieved at the National Physical Laboratory, written by Professor Gill and co-workers from NPL:''Trapped ion optical frequency standards'' by P Gill, G P Barwood, H A Klein, G Huang, S A Webster, P J Blythe, K Hosaka, S N Lea and H S Margolis 2003 Meas. Sci. Technol. 14 (8) 1174–86He was one of the very early developers of the frequency comb idea, and in 2004 he led an experiment where the femtosecond laser frequency comb measured the prototype optical clock frequency, based on a strontium-ion optical transition, with accuracy close to the capability of the best caesium microwave clocks.Once again I congratulate Professor Gill and wish him every success for his future work.