Physicists Build Better Atom Laser

Atoms in a special uniform state called a Bose-Einstein condensate can be manipulated with light to form a highly directional atom laser, NIST physicists reported in the March 12 issue of Science.

The NIST atom laser forms a directed narrow beam, a significant step forward from the first atom laser demonstrated in 1997 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The atom laser is as different from an ordinary atom beam as an optical laser is from a flashlight.

Funded in part by the Office of Naval Research and NASA, the NIST atom laser project team included a researcher on sabbatical from Georgia Southern University.

The NIST atom laser was made from a gaseous Bose-Einstein condensate, an exotic form of matter first achieved in Boulder, Colo., in 1995 by NIST physicist Eric Cornell and University of Colorado physicist Carl Wieman. In the atom laser experiment at NIST in Gaithersburg, Md., scientists trapped sodium atoms in a magnetic field and cooled them to a millionth of a degree above absolute zero. At this temperature a Bose-Einstein condensate formed, a special state of matter in which all atoms are indistinguishable and behave in the same way, as a single entity. They further cooled the atoms to about 50 billionths of a degree above absolute zero so that almost all the atoms in the gas were in the condensate state.

To make the atom laser, the group aimed two optical lasers from opposite directions at the "supercold" condensate. By tuning the optical lasers to different frequencies, the researchers ejected the atoms in the direction of the lower-frequency laser beam, and by pulsing them very quickly, they produced a nearly steady beam of sodium atoms. The graphic shows the change in the atom laser from separate pulses to a continuous stream as the repetition rate of the optical laser pulses is increased.

The NIST atom laser is very well collimated, that is the atoms streaming out of the condensate remain as a very narrow beam, much as light in a laser pointer spreads very little even across a large auditorium.

Although practical uses of the atom laser could be years away, scientists are excited about the NIST invention and its potential. Atomic wavelengths can be much smaller than light wavelengths, consequently atom lasers should be able to produce holographic images of objects too small to be imaged with optical lasers. The atom laser may also be useful for more precise gyroscopes or interferometers, devices that currently use optical lasers.

Contact: Steven Rolston, (301) 975-6581.

Calibration Service For Prostate Seeds

Men who opt to treat prostate cancer with implanted radioactive seeds rather than surgery or external beam radiation now can be assured that their radiation dose is traceable to a new and improved standard at NIST.

Aside from skin cancer, prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men. Radioactive prostate seeds minimize the risk of incontinence and impotence, and may be as effective as surgery or external beam radiation for men with localized prostate cancer.

Prostate seeds—which are each about the size of a grain of rice—work by delivering radiation directly to a tumor. A doctor, guided by ultrasound imaging and taking into account the strength of the seeds, inserts them into the tumor to kill the cancer cells. Significant dose from the seeds extends only a short distance, so the implant pattern can be designed in a way that doesn’t affect tissue much beyond the tumor.

NIST is the only laboratory in the world to offer this new calibration service to radioactive prostate seed manufacturers. Regulators require that manufacturers trace the accuracy of their prostate seeds to radiation standards at NIST.

The new and improved NIST standard is a radiation detector that is 100 times more sensitive than the detector used to establish the old standard.

The previous standard was applicable only to radioactive seeds containing iodine-125 and of the designs available in 1984. The new detector can determine the radiation exposure from seeds of arbitrary design for either radioactive iodine-125 or palladium-103, both low-energy X-ray emitters.

To determine the exposure from a seed, NIST physicists place the seed right next to the opening of the detector. Radiation from the seed then knocks electrons out of atoms in the air inside the detector. This ionization creates an electrical current that is measured by the detector and then converted to air-kerma strength, a quantity related to X-ray exposure. The corresponding dose to tissue then will be proportional to this calibrated air-kerma strength.

Contact: Stephen Seltzer, (301) 975-5552.

News Round Up

• Commerce Secretary William Daley has proclaimed 1999 as the Year of the Small Manufacturer. Throughout the year, NIST’s Manufacturing Extension Partnership will be highlighting the achievements of small manufacturers. For further information go to www.mep.nist.gov or call (800) MEP-4MFG.

• NIST dedicated a major new laboratory building in March. The 18,500 square meter (200,000 square foot) Advanced Chemical Sciences Laboratory is a state-of-the-art research facility that will allow NIST scientists to extend their capabilities and increase the efficiency and impact of research in biotechnology, analytical, environmental, clinical, and other related chemical measurements.

• The 1999 Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence is now available in versions tailored for for-profit businesses, health care providers, and educational organizations. Single copies are available free by calling (301) 975-2036.

• Karen Brown has been appointed NIST's new deputy director. Brown comes to NIST following a 22-year career at IBM, most recently as Distinguished Engineer at IBM Microelectronics in Hopewell Junction, N.Y.

Molding the Future of Auto Bodies

The first ballpoint pen, goes the manufacturing saw, costs you a hundred grand. But the second costs only pennies. Success lies in a process that allows you to produce large quantities of your product quickly and cheaply.

Design Evolution 4, a small firm in Lebanon, Ohio, believes it has that process for the car of the future. DE4 developed a molding system that creates the composite chassis of the Solectria Sunrise electric sedan. Developed by the Northeast Alternative Vehicle Consortium (Boston, Mass.) with support from the NIST Advanced Technology Program and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Sunrise is a full-featured, all-composite electric vehicle. Its novel one-piece construction eliminates hundreds of individual parts, reduces the body/chassis weight to 350 pounds, and provides extraordinary crash-worthiness.

But to be commercially viable, such a vehicle needs a rapid, low-cost manufacturing process. Enter DE4. The company’s engineers knew from years of experience in the business that conventional techniques used for smaller components would never meet mass production requirements for the 16-by-6 foot Sunrise chassis. Their solution was a unique multiport injection mold, instrumented to allow operators to track the progress of the resin through the mold. The rate of flow for each port can be adjusted individually throughout the process for the greatest efficiency. The DE4 system has cut the cycle time required to mold a complete Sunrise chassis from a matter of hours to about 30 minutes. DE4 is now working to fully automate the process and cut time even further.

The ATP joint venture includes 11 private companies and public-sector organizations spanning advanced power systems, manufacturing design, and composites technology.

Contact: John Plessinger, (513) 932-3100.

Medal of Science Awarded to Cahn

John W. Cahn, a leading materials scientist at NIST, has been named by President Clinton to receive the 1998 National Medal of Science. Cahn, a NIST Fellow since 1984, is the first NIST scientist to be awarded the medal, which is the nation’s highest scientific honor.

The National Science Foundation announced that Cahn is recognized for his contributions to the fields of materials science, solid-state physics, chemistry, and mathematics. He is most widely known for his elegant theories of how materials transform from one phase to another. These theories have been used by researchers in fields ranging from materials science to astronomy.

During his 40-year career, Cahn has had a profound influence on the progress of materials and mathematics research. He has published approximately 250 scientific papers, delivered 400 invited lectures on his work, and received numerous national and international honors and awards. Cahn began working at NIST in 1977, when the agency was still called the National Bureau of Standards.

Contact: Carol Handwerker, (301) 975-6158.

Magnetic Squeeze Forms Metal Parts

Forget about holding lists on the fridge, an engineering company in Ohio has a way to use magnetism to rapidly fashion high-performance gears and other automotive parts. With co-funding from NIST’s Advanced Technology Program, IAP Research, Inc., a small Dayton company, worked with three other companies to use a strong magnetic field to squeeze metal powders into high-density parts.

Gears and other parts that have to be tough, durable, and built to precise tolerances are conventionally made by forging a “blank” and then carefully cutting and grinding to get the finished product, a laborious and expensive process. A lower-cost alternative is “powder compaction”—very fine metal or ceramic powders are simultaneously heated and compressed in a mold to produce parts that are close to final dimensions and need only a little finishing. But parts made this way have not been dense—and hence strong—enough for demanding applications like powertrain gears.

Until now. IAP’s process involves loading metal powders into an electrically conductive container and then placing the container in an electromagnetic coil. A pulse of high electric current generates a magnetic pressure wave that collapses the container in on itself, squeezing powder into high-density parts in an instant.

The company developed the new process in a joint venture with General Motors’ Powertrain Division, Pontiac, Mich.; Zenith Sintered Products, Inc., Germantown, Wis.; and Delphi Energy & Engine Management Systems, Anderson, Ind.

Contact: John Barber, (937) 296-1806.

Mini CAT Scans Check Out Circuits

Computer-aided tomography has been a major boon to medicine, allowing doctors to construct three-dimensional X-ray images of structures inside the body. Now, NIST scientists are hoping to apply the technology of CAT scanning to diagnosing microcircuit maladies.

As reported in Applied Physics Letters (Jan. 4, 1999) researchers from the Digital Equipment Corp., Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Argonne National Laboratory, and NIST have demonstrated the use of computer-aided X-ray tomography to make three-dimensional images of microelectronic interconnects buried within an integrated circuit. While medical CAT scans typically image features as small as 0.5 mm, the microtomography instrumentation used by the current NIST group achieved a resolution of just 400 nm across, or 1,250 times smaller.

As microcircuit features continue to both shrink and become more complex, the semiconductor industry needs a reliable, fast way to inspect circuit connections with a resolution of tens of nanometers. The NIST collaborative project hopes to ultimately provide the semiconductor industry with a tool for imaging circuitry in cubes measuring 10 or more micrometers on a side with a resolution of about 50 nm. Such a resolution would meet the production needs of the industry in the year 2002 as projected in the National Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors.

Contact: Zachary Levine, (301) 975-5453.

Historic Documents To Get Anti-Aging Treatment

The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights have preserved the rights and freedoms of Americans for more than 200 years. Preserving these great documents has been the nearly 50-year task of helium-filled cases created by the National Bureau of Standards, predecessor to the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Now, NIST and the National Archives and Records Administration have teamed to transfer the documents to state-of-the-art enclosures by 2003. Examinations recently detected microscopic fissures in the glass plates that hold the document pages upright for viewing. Preservationists fear such cracks eventually will let in pollutants. Additionally, constant contact between the parchment and the glass may cause abrasions. Correcting these problems is currently impossible: the cases are soldered shut and cannot be opened without compromising the seal. Archivists will be able to open the new cases—if it’s ever necessary—without damage to the seal. The documents will be mounted so that glass never touches parchment. Ultra-smooth surfaces and using argon gas rather than helium will minimize leakage.

Contact: Richard Rhorer, (301) 975-6506.

Internet in a Box

Companies that develop advanced products and services for the Internet want their new technologies to do well in all conceivable conditions, but they never know what the Internet “weather” will be like. Traffic can be light or heavy. Critical packets of information sent over the network can get lost or arrive out of order. Now, NIST scientists have developed a software tool that allows engineers to test their products under a wide variety of artificial Internet “weather” conditions. The NIST Network Emulation Tool (NIST Net) enables extensive testing of the effects of Internet performance scenarios early in the product development cycle, allowing engineers to design products that work well in a variety of network conditions. NIST Net, sometimes called an “Internet in a box,” can run on a personal computer, making the testing process inexpensive. Many companies and universities are using the NIST Net to test everything from business applications to Internet games. To download the free software go to
www-x.antd.nist.gov/nistnet/.

Contact: Doug Montgomery, (301) 975-3630.

Is the Price Really Right?

A new survey conducted by the Federal Trade Commission, NIST, and weights and measures offices in 37 jurisdictions concluded that the accuracy of laser scanned pricing has improved since the first study in 1996. The wrong price, however, was charged for approximately one in 30 items checked in the survey of more than 100,000 consumer products in all types of retail stores. Grocery stores, as a group, had the highest pricing accuracy in the survey with 77 percent of inspected food stores passing. Drug stores were next best with 72 percent passing inspection, followed by mass merchandise stores, 70 percent; department stores, 67 percent; and hardware stores, 55 percent. A follow-up to a 1996 study, the 1998 study was a larger, more comprehensive review that compared scanned prices with the lowest posted or advertised price of a randomized sample of items. For more details, see www.nist.gov/public_affairs/releases/scanner.htm.

Contact: Tom Coleman, (301) 975-4868.

FREE Help on the Way for Y2K

Small manufacturers and other small businesses looking for free help in dealing with the year 2000 computer problem can contact the just-opened Y2K Help Center for Small Business at NIST. Open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. (Eastern Time) Monday through Friday, the Y2K Help Center will provide technical support to users of Conversion 2000: Y2K Self-Help Tool, developed by NIST’s Manufacturing Extension Partnership. The center can be contacted at 1-800-Y2K-7557 (925-7557). Using the Y2K Self-Help Tool software, available in both Microsoft Access™ and Excel™, small businesses can conduct an inventory of equipment, including hardware, software, and embedded systems; identify core business systems and rate their importance to the survival of the business; develop contingency plans; and plan and manage remediation projects. The Y2K Self-Help Tool is available on the Y2K Help Center web site or from MEP centers around the country by calling 1-800-MEP-4MFG (637-4634). The center is supported by NIST, the Department of Agriculture, and the Small Business Administration.

Optical Fibers—NIST scientists have developed and evaluated a transfer standard for the calibration of optical fiber power meters over the wavelength range of 750-1800 nanometers. The transfer standard is an optical-trap detector consisting of two germanium photodiodes and a mirror. The photodiodes and mirror are contained in a package that is thermally stable and accepts a variety of optical fiber connectors. Benefits of this standard include high optical-to-electrical conversion efficiency, reasonable cost, and improved spatial uniformity.

Contact: John Lehman, (303) 497-3654.

CRADA Count—During fiscal year 1998, NIST entered into 74 cooperative research and development agreements with U.S. industry, bringing the agency’s total to 834 since the CRADA mechanism was established by Congress in 1988. The 74 partnerships forged in FY 1998 included 43 with small businesses, or 58 percent of the agreements. During the year, there were 328 CRADAs still active. Also during FY 1998, NIST submitted 33 invention disclosures and filed 58 patent applications with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Contact: Bruce E. Mattson, (301) 975-3084.

Oil Burn—A computer program developed by NIST fire researchers played a role in the decision in February to ignite fuel on a cargo ship stranded off the coast of Oregon. Predictions provided by the program helped the emergency response team understand the consequences of burning the fuel.

Doing nothing might allow a disastrous oil spill that would wreak havoc on Oregon’s pristine estuaries, while setting a fire would produce a plume of smoke that could pose a health hazard to residents on shore. Predictions from the program, called ALOFT-FT, were made at NIST’s facility in Gaithersburg, Md., and faxed to the on-scene response team. The data showed a limited spread of the downwind smoke plume, and photographs of the actual smoke plume from the ship fire agreed favorably with the model’s predictions.

Contact: Doug Walton, (301) 975-6872.

Crystallizing Proteins—NIST and BioSpace International, a start-up biotech company, recently entered a cooperative agreement to explore new ways to crystallize proteins. The partners currently are evaluating protein crystals they grew on the ground and on the space shuttle Discovery last fall. Crystallization usually is a first step for determining a protein’s three-dimensional structure, often critical information for the discovery of new drugs. Data from the recent space and ground-based experiments could lead to improved crystallization techniques.

Contact: Travis Gallagher, (301) 975-5726.

About Technology at a Glance:

NIST is an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce's Technology Administration. NIST promotes U.S. economic growth by working with industry to develop and apply technology, measurements, and standards. Technology at a Glance is produced by Public and Business Affairs, NIST, 100 Bureau Dr., Stop 3460, Gaithersburg, Md. 20899-3460. Any mention of commercial products is for information only; it does not imply recommendation or endorsement by NIST. Technology at a Glance Editor: Gail Porter, (301) 975-3392, email: gail.porter@nist.gov. For patent information, call (301) 975-3084.

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