Team 'Cloq' clockwise from bottom left: Aria Puri who is in the final year of her undergraduate degree, Joel Klein who is just starting the MPhys programme and David McMahon, who is completing his DPhil in Atomic and Laser Physics, from the Department of Physics, along with Yuanzhu Wang who is in the second year of his engineering degree.
A team of four students – three of whom are from the Department of Physics – came second in the University of Oxford’s annual Student Entrepreneurship Programme. StEP is an 8-week educational accelerator run in collaboration with Oxford University Innovation and Oxford Edge and the team was one of nine pitching for a cash prize in front of a live audience and judging panel.
The team, Cloq, won £5,000 for their work exploring how a miniaturised, low-cost atomic clock could bring high-precision timing to applications where existing solutions are currently too expensive. Cloq also won a place to pitch at Stage Two, an international competition that takes place in Berlin in October.
The Cloq team comprises David McMahon, who is completing his DPhil in Atomic and Laser Physics, Joel Klein who is just starting the MPhys programme and Aria Puri who is in the final year of her undergraduate degree, all from the Department of Physics, along with Yuanzhu Wang who is in the second year of his engineering degree.
The quartet joined forces as they all naturally gravitated to one particular project on the table: a University of Oxford patent, developed by Professor Arzhang Ardavan from the Department of Physics and colleagues, for a new type of compact atomic clock. The clock uses a nitrogen atom trapped inside a carbon cage known as a ‘buckminsterfullerene’ molecule, or more informally a ‘buckyball’; the combined system is an ‘endohedral fullerene’. The buckyball acts as a protective cage, shielding the nitrogen atom, and preserving its quantum properties without requiring dedicated equipment to isolate the nitrogen from its environment.
The Cloq team spent the programme investigating where the technology could have useful applications in precise timing. Accurate timing underpins technologies including GPS and telecommunications: it allows GPS receivers to determine position accurately and enables telecommunications networks to transmit data efficiently and reliably.
Cloq is not the first team with members from the Department of Physics to do well in the programme; during their time on StEP, Ramy Aboushelbaya and Marko von der Leyen worked on University IP which ultimately led to them co-founding deep-tech spinout Quantum Dice, which uses quantum mechanics to generate random numbers.
‘Marko and Ramy recommended the programme to me,’ explains David. ‘I was keen to get experience of taking a scientific idea beyond the laboratory and understanding what it takes to translate university research into real-world impact via commercial enterprise. StEP seemed like a particularly good opportunity to learn about the process of building a deep-tech venture, to start to get familiar with Oxford's extensive start-up and spinout ecosystem, and to connect with other people interested in this.’
Following their success in the competition, the team will continue validating the strongest applications with potential customers and industry partners alongside preparing to represent the University of Oxford at Stage Two later this year. The £5,000 prize money also provides the team with a starting point to develop the technology and business case further.
‘I am delighted that Cloq did so well in this year’s competition,’ comments Phill Tait, who leads on innovation and enterprise for the Department of Physics. ‘Physics naturally generates ideas, technologies and expertise that lend themselves to commercialisation so, as a department, it is fantastic to not only contribute the intellectual property to take to market but also provide the talented people to do it.’
‘StEP was a fantastic opportunity to learn how to look at scientific research from a completely different perspective,’ concludes David. ‘Rather than starting with the technology and forcing a fit, we spent eight weeks talking to potential users, understanding their problems, and working backwards to see where the technology could genuinely provide value. I gained valuable tools and skills, as well as the chance to learn from mentors and serial entrepreneurs across a huge range of sectors. Most importantly, it made the route from an interesting piece of research, confined to the lab, to something that could have real-world impact feel much more tangible.’