COMPANY RESEARCH · Sensing & timing

Vector Atomic

Provides local timing references for systems that need stable clocks when external synchronization is limited.

United States · Research reviewed 7 Sept 2026

Initial record: initial assessment recorded.

Review history 1 record

Record dates use UTC and show when an assessment or clarification was saved. Review dates show the evidence check. Earlier records were recovered from QubitWire’s source history; no earlier score movement is inferred.

Recorded
7 Sept 2026
Initial assessment recorded
Assessment reviewed 7 Sept 2026 · Research reviewed 7 Sept 2026
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Sources in this record (5)

Identity & attribution

Organization record: Vector Atomic (organization-118)
Recorded role: Field-deployable optical clocks and timing hardware
Recorded aliases: No aliases recorded in this assessment.
Name and period: IonQ completed the acquisition of Vector Atomic on October 7, 2025. This profile assesses the identifiable sensing business, not an independent publicly traded company.
Product scope: Iodine-vapor optical clocks with frequency-comb outputs; separate atomic sensing research.

A company profile may discuss several systems. Capabilities remain attached to the product and conditions named in each source; they do not transfer automatically to related organizations. A verified security relationship has not been attached to this record.

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TECHNOLOGY & ACCESS

What it does. Where it fits.

Iodine-vapor optical clocks with frequency-comb outputs; separate atomic sensing research.

Who should look closer

Timing and metrology teams evaluating compact optical references and field holdover performance.

QubitWire’s editorial assessment of practical fit.

Direct commercial enquiry

Evergreen-30 specifications are public. Confirm the exact revision, available output options, environmental limits and delivery terms with the supplier.

Check the current access route ↗

DOCUMENTED EVIDENCE

What the sources establish

Vector Atomic’s Nature paper reports three iodine clocks operating aboard a naval ship for 20 days. Its authors are company employees, so peer review should not be mistaken for independent replication.

Nature portfolio study ↗

What remains unresolved

The maritime result concerns research clocks, not a guarantee for every commercial unit. NIST’s compact strontium-clock project is separate from the iodine-based Evergreen-30 product.

The next question to watch

Can customer-operated units reproduce published stability and holdover under their own thermal, vibration and service conditions?

A research question, not a promised milestone.

QubitWire coverage

No published QubitWire stories currently match this organization. The evidence sources below provide the starting point.

Open research questions

Editorial questions for this profile. No reviewed closure decision has been recorded; unanswered questions do not lower the official score.

Open research question

Can customer-operated units reproduce published stability and holdover under their own thermal, vibration and service conditions?

What evidence would help

A source addressing this question must identify the named system, experiment or deployment, its conditions, measured outcome and remaining limitations. Was the instrument evaluated outside the supplier’s laboratory?

What would resolve it?

An editorial review must explain which part of this question the evidence resolves. A roadmap or an announcement alone does not close it.

No resolved, partial or disputed outcome is asserted without a reviewed transition and its evidence.

Suggest evidence

Open research question

Which named system or service can I use under the documented access route?

What evidence would help

Check the current terms for direct commercial enquiry. Identify the system version, eligibility, restrictions and whether the result used hardware or simulation.

What would resolve it?

Current primary documentation must identify the offering, eligible user and access conditions. An unspecified company-level access claim is insufficient.

No resolved, partial or disputed outcome is asserted without a reviewed transition and its evidence.

Suggest evidence

Open research question

What shielding, temperature control and calibration are required?

What evidence would help

Provide the source location, relevant product or generation, workload, resource constraints and reported uncertainty. Keep measurements, simulations and announced targets distinct.

What would resolve it?

A source reviewer must map the evidence to this exact scope. Missing disclosure remains unknown; it is not technical failure.

No resolved, partial or disputed outcome is asserted without a reviewed transition and its evidence.

Suggest evidence

Questions are drawn from the existing brief and sector reading guide. Research brief reviewed 7 Sept 2026. Following stores a local bookmark; it does not send email alerts or imply a scheduled review.

Since your review

Scope: Vector Atomic. Reading a page never marks its records reviewed.

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From claim to assessment

These are the existing assessment claims and their recorded criterion links. A source link is not an independent replication. New research does not change these published ratings automatically.

Source references in method 1.0 · assessment reviewed 7 Sept 2026
Recorded claim & source	Assessment linkage	Provenance & limits
Source 1 Vector Atomic authors report three 35-liter iodine clocks operating at sea for 20 days with timing errors below 300 ps per day. The paper is peer reviewed but company-authored. Optical clocks at sea ↗Published 24 Apr 2024 Exact source location No page, figure or section locator is recorded. Open the source and check the claim in its original context.	Capability Three clocks demonstrate operation in a relevant maritime environment; the study is company-authored. Use in practice Named field and NIST research applications are documented, but repeated independent customer outcomes for the commercial product were not established. Integration The clock exposes standard microwave and pulse-per-second timing outputs alongside optical references, with a documented NIST comparison workflow. Published rating inputs remain unchanged.	Organization-originated source Source type: Peer-reviewed vendor research. Independent replication, experiment date and source-version fingerprint are not separately recorded. Product and measurement scope: read the named system and conditions in this claim. No normalized product revision is assigned. Review recorded 7 Sept 2026. Research brief reviewed 7 Sept 2026. These dates do not establish publication or experiment dates. Report an issue with this claim →
Source 2 The supplier specifies a rackmount iodine clock with microwave, optical and pulse-per-second outputs; performance tables state environmental conditions and distinguish typical from maximum values. Evergreen-30 rackmount optical-clock data sheet ↗Published Not recorded Exact source location No page, figure or section locator is recorded. Open the source and check the claim in its original context.	Delivery A defined commercial product has a specification sheet and direct supplier access; extensive public operational manuals were not verified. Integration The clock exposes standard microwave and pulse-per-second timing outputs alongside optical references, with a documented NIST comparison workflow. Published rating inputs remain unchanged.	Organization-originated source Source type: Vendor technical data sheet. Independent replication, experiment date and source-version fingerprint are not separately recorded. Product and measurement scope: read the named system and conditions in this claim. No normalized product revision is assigned. Review recorded 7 Sept 2026. Research brief reviewed 7 Sept 2026. These dates do not establish publication or experiment dates. Report an issue with this claim →
Source 3 NIST identifies Vector Atomic as assembler of a separate compact strontium-clock package whose performance NIST is characterizing. This is research-partner evidence, not certification of Evergreen-30. Optical Clock With Integrated Photonics ↗Published Not recorded Exact source location No page, figure or section locator is recorded. Open the source and check the claim in its original context.	Use in practice Named field and NIST research applications are documented, but repeated independent customer outcomes for the commercial product were not established. Published rating inputs remain unchanged.	Organization-originated source Source type: National-laboratory research-partner report. Independent replication, experiment date and source-version fingerprint are not separately recorded. Product and measurement scope: read the named system and conditions in this claim. No normalized product revision is assigned. Review recorded 7 Sept 2026. Research brief reviewed 7 Sept 2026. These dates do not establish publication or experiment dates. Report an issue with this claim →
Source 4 IonQ confirms completion of the Vector Atomic acquisition; its sensing business is no longer a standalone independent company. IonQ completes acquisition of Vector Atomic ↗Published 7 Oct 2025 Exact source location No page, figure or section locator is recorded. Open the source and check the claim in its original context.	Published rating inputs remain unchanged.	Organization-originated source Source type: Parent-company transaction announcement. Independent replication, experiment date and source-version fingerprint are not separately recorded. Product and measurement scope: read the named system and conditions in this claim. No normalized product revision is assigned. Review recorded 7 Sept 2026. Research brief reviewed 7 Sept 2026. These dates do not establish publication or experiment dates. Report an issue with this claim →
Source 5 The company offers timing and sensing products and publishes a direct contact route for collaboration, field demonstrations and product adoption. Vector Atomic products and access ↗Published Not recorded Exact source location No page, figure or section locator is recorded. Open the source and check the claim in its original context.	Delivery A defined commercial product has a specification sheet and direct supplier access; extensive public operational manuals were not verified. Published rating inputs remain unchanged.	Organization-originated source Source type: Vendor overview. Independent replication, experiment date and source-version fingerprint are not separately recorded. Product and measurement scope: read the named system and conditions in this claim. No normalized product revision is assigned. Review recorded 7 Sept 2026. Research brief reviewed 7 Sept 2026. These dates do not establish publication or experiment dates. Report an issue with this claim →

Revision and evidence-family boundaries

Record reference: ee0cd201c8b30324c839aca53ba42708995f7ad107cd925b3aadaedc85525341. Read prior recorded revisions.

Repeated coverage can describe the same experiment. The assessment does not contain a reviewed claim-family grouping, so the number of links is never shown as a replication count. Source pages can change independently of this saved assessment; the original source text is not archived here.

CHECK THE ORIGINALS

Sources & evidence

Optical clocks at sea ↗Organization-originated source · 24 Apr 2024
Vector Atomic authors report three 35-liter iodine clocks operating at sea for 20 days with timing errors below 300 ps per day. The paper is peer reviewed but company-authored.
Evergreen-30 rackmount optical-clock data sheet ↗Organization-originated source · Publication date not stated
The supplier specifies a rackmount iodine clock with microwave, optical and pulse-per-second outputs; performance tables state environmental conditions and distinguish typical from maximum values.
Optical Clock With Integrated Photonics ↗Organization-originated source · Publication date not stated
NIST identifies Vector Atomic as assembler of a separate compact strontium-clock package whose performance NIST is characterizing. This is research-partner evidence, not certification of Evergreen-30.
IonQ completes acquisition of Vector Atomic ↗Organization-originated source · 7 Oct 2025
IonQ confirms completion of the Vector Atomic acquisition; its sensing business is no longer a standalone independent company.
Vector Atomic products and access ↗Organization-originated source · Publication date not stated
The company offers timing and sensing products and publishes a direct contact route for collaboration, field demonstrations and product adoption.

QRANK EDITORIAL OPINION

67.5/ 100

Position 4 of 4 assessed in sensing & timing.

Edition 23 Sept 2026 · Assessment reviewed 7 Sept 2026

Why this position?

Strength: Peer-reviewed field measurements and explicit timing-output specifications.

Limitation: The maritime result concerns research clocks, not a guarantee for every commercial unit. NIST’s compact strontium-clock project is separate from the iodine-based Evergreen-30 product.

Read the assessment evidence →

Capability3 / 4

Three clocks demonstrate operation in a relevant maritime environment; the study is company-authored.

35% of the sector score

Source 1 ↗

Delivery3 / 4

A defined commercial product has a specification sheet and direct supplier access; extensive public operational manuals were not verified.

25% of the sector score

Source 2 ↗Source 5 ↗

Use in practice2 / 4

Named field and NIST research applications are documented, but repeated independent customer outcomes for the commercial product were not established.

30% of the sector score

Source 1 ↗Source 3 ↗

Integration3 / 4

The clock exposes standard microwave and pulse-per-second timing outputs alongside optical references, with a documented NIST comparison workflow.

10% of the sector score

Source 1 ↗Source 2 ↗

Scores express QubitWire’s research-informed opinions within this sector. They are not objective measurements, official ratings or forecasts of investment returns.

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Published method & explore assumptions

Published assessment: 67.5 / 100
Method 1.0 · Sensing & timing · reviewed 7 Sept 2026

Version manifest and exact arithmetic

Method: 1.0 · current recorded sector weights
Rating domain: Integer 0–4. Missing inputs remain unscored.
Arithmetic: Sum of weight × rating / 4, before display rounding.
Ranking precision: Production compares unrounded calculated totals. There is no separate quantized rank-tick policy.
Ties: Exactly equal totals share the same competition position. Alphabetical display order does not break a tie.
Display: One decimal using the production JavaScript toFixed(1) formatting rule. Display rounding does not determine rank.
Cohort: Eligible published assessments in this sector and method. Numbered positions require at least three eligible records; reviews over 90 days old leave the current ranking.

Criterion	Rating	Weight	Exact points
Capability	3	35%	26.25
Delivery	3	25%	18.75
Use in practice	2	30%	15
Integration	3	10%	7.5

Original recorded versions remain in the company review history. No method transition or historical trend is inferred by this workspace.

Explore assumptions

Hypothetical scenario. Change weights to explore this one assessment. The official score, ranking and saved edition are unchanged. This is scenario dependence, not a confidence interval.

Capability · 35%Delivery · 25%Use in practice · 30%Integration · 10%

Weight total: 100%. Required total: 100%.

Hypothetical score: 67.5 / 100

Corrections & review history

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