NIST Tech Beat - Feb. 16, 2006

Cigarettes are the single largest igniters of fatal fires in the United States. Each year these fires cause about 700 to 800 deaths, 1,700 serious injuries and $400 million in direct property damage, according to the National Fire Protection Association. Several states, as well as Canada, have moved to reduce this toll by requiring that all cigarettes sold in their jurisdictions meet a new standard for low risk of igniting household furnishings. This month, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) released Standard Reference Material (SRM) 1082 to help testing laboratories and cigarette manufacturers make accurate measurements required by the new regulations. The SRM consists of 10 packs of uniform cigarettes especially produced with the required low risk of ignition.

The regulations in New York, California, Vermont and Canada all use an ASTM standard,* which was originally developed by NIST as part of the Fire Safe Cigarette Act of 1990. All have adopted the 2004 New York State pass/fail criterion that no more than 25 percent of 40 tested cigarettes burn their full length when placed on 10 layers of standard filter paper.

NIST developed SRM 1082 at the request of cigarette companies, the New York State Office of Fire Prevention and Control (OFPC), and Health Canada. Extensive testing by NIST, the National Research Council of Canada and Kidde-Fenwal Inc. established that SRM 1082, manufactured for NIST by Philip Morris USA, is compatible with the New York State pass/fail criterion.

Approximately 20 laboratories are or will be performing testing of commercial cigarettes for compliance using the ASTM standard. Comparative measurements between SRM 1082 and commercial cigarettes should enable testing laboratories to assure clients that their measurements are accurate and do not vary over time. Cigarette companies also are expected to use the SRM to check their products’ ignition properties prior to certification testing. More information about SRM 1082, including purchase data, can be found at https://srmors.nist.gov/view_detail.cfm?srm=1082.

*ASTM standard E2187-04, “Standard Test Method for Measuring the Ignition Strength of a Cigarette.”

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is slated for $535 million for its core funding (laboratory research and facility upgrades) under President George W. Bush’s American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI), according to the FY 2007 budget request submitted to the Congress on Feb. 6, 2006.

If the requested amount is approved by Congress, the additional $104 million for NIST’s core funding—a more than 24 percent increase—will be the largest increase ever for the agency’s laboratory research.

“NIST is positioned to play a key role in advancing our nation’s innovation and competitiveness,” said NIST Director William Jeffrey. “The research initiatives in this budget reflect that and will strongly support the President’s competitiveness initiative.”

An additional $46.3 million was requested for Industrial Technology Services (ITS) to fund the Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership program. This is a reduction of $58.3 million from the FY 2006 level made in order to address the nation’s most pressing needs in an austere fiscal environment. No FY 2007 funds were requested for the Advanced Technology Program. FY 2006 appropriations and estimated recoveries will be sufficient to meet all existing obligations and to phase out the program.

The proposed increase in the NIST core funding for FY 2007 is one of the first steps toward meeting the goals of the ACI announced by the President in his State of the Union address on Jan. 31, 2006. The centerpiece of the ACI is a $50 billion investment to double over the next 10 years the funding for three key federal agencies that support basic research programs in the physical sciences and engineering—the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy's Office of Science, and NIST.

For more information, see www.nist.gov/public_affairs/releases/budget_proposal_aci.htm.

Method May Help Optimize Light-emitting Semiconductors

What do you see in these Rorschach-blot-like images? JILA physicists see the once-hidden electronic behavior of semiconductors. The
computer plots show how energy intensity (ranging from low in blue to high in red) varies as electronic structures called excitons absorb
laser light and emit energy at various frequencies. The pair of similar "butterflies" indicates that an exciton is absorbing and emitting energy in a predictable pattern.

Credit: JILA

View a high resolution version of this image.

Physicists at JILA have demonstrated an ultrafast laser technique for "seeing" once-hidden electronic behavior in semiconductors, which eventually could be useful in more predictable design of optoelectronic devices, including semiconductor lasers and white light-emitting diodes. The work at JILA, a joint institute of the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Colorado at Boulder, is described in the Feb. 10 issue of Physical Review Letters.*

The technique manipulates light energy and wave patterns to reveal subtle behavior, such as correlated oscillations of two objects. Such correlations are important because they may allow researchers to more accurately predict the emission frequencies produced by an optoelectronic device based on its structure and semiconductor materials.

The method was developed originally by other researchers years ago for probing couplings between spinning nuclei as an indicator of molecular structure, and it led to a Nobel prize; more recently, scientists have been trying to use it to study vibrations in chemical bonds. The JILA team is the first to show the approach offers new insights into electronic properties of semiconductors. The use of light as a precision tool to manage electronic behavior could lead to improved optoelectronic devices.

In the JILA technique, a sample made of thin layers of gallium arsenide is hit with a continuous series of three near-infrared laser pulses lasting just 100 femtoseconds each. Trillions of electronic structures called excitons are formed. They consist of “excited” electrons and the "holes" they leave behind as they jump to higher energy vibration patterns. By changing the timing of the laser pulses and analyzing the wave patterns of the light and exciton oscillations, the JILA scientists figured out how to produce and identify correlations between absorption and emission of light from the material. The presence or absence of correlations can be seen in a computer plot of the frequency and wave pattern of the absorbed and emitted light. Correlations are revealed as a pair of similar butterfly-shaped plots (see graphic).

The research is supported in part by the Department of Energy.

* X. Li, T. Zhang, C.N. Borca and S.T. Cundiff. 2006. Many-body interactions in semiconductors probed by optical two-dimensional Fourier transform spectroscopy. Physical Review Letters. Feb. 10.

Media Contact:
Laura Ost, laura.ost@nist.gov, (301) 975-4034

Quick Links

Technology in today’s fast-moving telecommunications industry is all about convergence. The “next big thing” are the so-called Next Generation Networks (NGN). The idea behind NGN is to seamlessly transition the current public telephone network used for transporting telephone conversations, faxes, and data to the technology behind the Internet, the public data network used for sending e-mail and other data-based telecommunications.

The annual Workshop on Synchronization in Telecommunication Systems, sponsored by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS), will address issues likely to emerge as NGNs are developed. The three-day workshop will be held March 14-16, 2006, at the Omni Interlocken Resort in Broomfield, Colo.

The meeting also will include tutorial presentations and networking opportunities for telecommunications synchronization professionals at a variety of different career levels. Network operators, strategists, design engineers, system architects and synchronization planners from the wireline, wireless, enterprise and utilities sectors will participate in interactive workshop sessions and panel discussions.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has implemented a Web-based system (http://wtc.nist.gov/recommendations/recommendations.htm) so that the public can track the progress toward implementing the recommendations from the agency's building and fire safety investigation of the World Trade Center disaster. For each of the 30 recommendations issued in October 2005, the Web site lists the specific organization or organizations (e.g., standards and code developers, professional groups, state and local authorities) responsible for implementation, the status of the implementation effort, and the remaining plans or work in progress toward implementation. The Web site is current as of Jan. 31, 2006, and will be updated from time to time to report progress.

A new Memorandum of Understanding aimed at helping small manufacturers better understand how to do business with federal, state and local governments was signed on Feb. 13, 2006, by Roger Kilmer, director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP), and Rebecca Peterson, president of the Association for Procurement Technical Assistance Centers (APTAC). As part of the agreement, MEP centers nationwide will have the opportunity to refer interested clients to the local Procurement Technical Assistance Center (PTAC) for training and counseling on government contracting, including bid and proposal preparation and government procurement policies, and PTAC will have the opportunity to refer manufacturing customers to MEP centers for technical assistance.

Administered by the Defense Department’s Defense Logistics Agency, the nationwide network of 93 PTACs provide a wide range of assistance covering all phases of government contracting. MEP is a nationwide network of resources transforming manufacturers to compete globally, supporting greater supply chain integration, and providing access to technology for improved productivity. For more information on MEP and PTACs, see www.mep.nist.gov and www.aptac-us.org/new.

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) metallurgist William J. Boettinger has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), an honor recognizing research accomplishments that have improved the design and processing of materials, from aerospace alloys to lead-free solders for microelectronics.

A NIST fellow, Boettinger has written more than 100 articles published in technical journals and books, and he is among the world’s most highly cited researchers in the field of materials science.

An expert in the field of solidification, the process by which liquid metals harden, Boettinger has developed models that are used to predict the type and arrangement of micrometer-scale structures that form as materials cool and solidify. This predictive capability makes it possible to optimize processing methods so that the desired microstructure and, as a result, physical properties such as strength or toughness are achieved.

Boettinger earned his undergraduate and doctoral degrees from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He has received numerous awards and honors, including two gold medals from the Commerce Department. The top honor awarded by the department, a gold medal recognizes “breakthrough” achievements that resolve long-standing problems, advance the state of the art, or significantly impact the economy.

Roger D. Kilmer has been appointed director of the Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) program at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Since 1993, Kilmer has been deputy director of MEP, responsible for internal operations, program coordination and policy review of all MEP activities. Kilmer started his career at NIST in 1974 in the Manufacturing Engineering Laboratory. Prior to coming to MEP, he was deputy division chief of robot systems, managing research programs involving real-time sensor-based control of intelligent machines. Kilmer received the Department of Commerce Silver Medal (1995) for leadership as the NIST MEP liaison to the interagency Technology Reinvestment Project initiative and the Bronze Medal (1992) for leadership of NIST’s unmanned ground vehicle robotics program. Kilmer holds a Master of Science and a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from Pennsylvania State University.

MEP is a nationwide network of resources that helps smaller manufacturers compete globally, supports greater supply chain integration and provides access to technology for improved productivity. For more information on MEP, see http://www.mep.nist.gov/bios/bios.htm.

Richard Kayser, a chemist with diverse technical and managerial experience, has been named director of the Materials Science and Engineering Laboratory (MSEL) at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). He succeeds Leslie Smith, who retired from NIST in November. Kayser had been serving as the laboratory’s acting director.

A 30-year veteran of NIST, Kayser joined the agency after earning his doctoral degree in physical chemistry from Rice University. He conducted research on the physics of fluids, including how changes in temperature, pressure and chemical composition affect the properties of materials. In 1999, after heading two divisions in the Chemical Science and Technology Laboratory, Kayser was named director of Technology Services, NIST’s outreach arm. The unit is responsible for providing business support for NIST’s calibration services, Standard Reference Materials and Standard Reference Data, as well as other functions. Prior to his new position, Kayser had been serving as NIST’s acting deputy director, responsible for administration and day-to-day operations.

With an appropriation of nearly $65 million in 2006, MSEL has major programs in metals, polymers, ceramics and materials reliability. It also manages the NIST Center for Neutron Research, a world-class user facility for studies in materials and many other fields.