PML at WorkHighlights of Science and Services
NIST Physicist Jacob Taylor received a Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medal (Sammies) for his advanced scientific research, which has potential for advances in health care, communications, computing, and technology. The award was presented on September 13, 2012, by Acting Commerce Secretary Rebecca Blank.
Scientists have devised and tested the world's most stable laser, with a frequency variation of no more than 2 parts in 10,000 trillion.
PML researchers have devised a novel source of portable sunlight that may fill an urgent need in renewable energy research.
PML played an important role in the calibration of the Mars rover's temperature sensors. These small, but critically important sensors monitor the rover's power generator.
PML has devised an alternative system for direct comparison of a reference mass in vacuum to an unknown mass artifact in air, using magnetic levitation.
PML researchers have determined the work function and band alignment of a graphene-insulator-semiconductor structure by combining internal photomeission and spectroscopic ellipsometry.
PML researchers devise a novel method of amplifying weak light signals without adding noise while also carrying more information than other low-noise amplifiers, with potential benefits to optical communications, quantum information processing, and biological and astronomical imaging.
 NIST's Speedy Ions Could Add Zip to Quantum Computers
Scientists in PML's Time & Frequency Division have demonstrated that they can accelerate beryllium ions from zero to 100 miles per hour and stop them in just a few microseconds. The physics of this behavior may prove useful in future quantum computers.
 Making a Tough Case: NIST Cartridge Standard Helps Tie Guns to CriminalsNIST researchers have produced an important new tool for crime labs -- a Standard Reference Material cartridge case to complement the standard bullet -- that can bring a new level of accuracy to investigations and stronger evidence to prosecutors. And now they are developing advanced technologies and techniques for further progress.
Simulating Superconductors with a Touch of Disorder The mechanism behind the critical phase transition in high-temperature superconductors is still uncertain more than a quarter of a century after the materials were discovered. A new experiment which applies controllable disorder to a quantum simulation provides important insight into the physics of the transition.
Over the past two decades, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) have become ubiquitous, with applications in cell phones, ink-jet printers, accelerometers, and scores of other devices. But there have been no industry-wide standards for characterizing features. So PML researchers have developed two new Reference Materials that enable accurate microscale measurements in MEMS devices.
First responders rely increasingly on wireless communication devices, and in emergencies they cannot afford major signal loss or delay caused by attenuation, interference, or reflection. Now PML's Metrology for Wireless Systems Project has devised testing methods and standards for this essential equipment used by firefighters and other public-safety personnel.
PML has expanded the capacity of its next-generation laser power meter to handle inputs up to 100 kilowatts -- ten times more powerful than beams that slice easily through carbon steel. Meter improvements and calibration standards are urgently sought by the U.S. laser industry.
NIST is taking a huge step into the vanishingly small with the Precision Imaging Facility (PIF) now being outfitted in new Precision Measurement Laboratory on the Boulder campus. The Laboratory will house four world-class imaging instruments.
PML has developed a new humidity generator for industrial calibrations that extends the range of dew-point measurements up to 98 °C – a 25% improvement over the current limit.
Until recently, getting direct NIST traceability for vacuum gauges has been a time-consuming and relatively expensive process. Now, however, even small businesses and labs can take advantage of a new, fully automated calibration system devised by PML.
PML played a major role in NIST’s contributions to the Science and Engineering Festival in Washington DC in April. The annual event promotes science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) by providing students with an up-close look at a wide variety of interactive exhibits.
Space may be the final frontier. But often a few trips to PML are necessary before things can get off the ground. Such is the case with NASA's Extreme Ultraviolet Monitor, which will soon head to Mars to examine the depletion of the planet's once-dense atmosphere.
The U.S. petroleum industry relies on volume measurements traceable to NIST, specifically to the Flow Metrology Group in PML's Sensor Science Division, to ensure maximum accuracy.
In the pursuit of precision measurements, nothing is simple, even when the apparatus employed appears to be utterly uncomplicated. An instructive case in point is the new ionization chamber used to determine the U.S. primary standard for air kerma, the amount of kinetic energy released per unit mass of air by ionizing radiation.
Clinicians who treat severe wounds may soon have powerful new diagnostic tools in the form of hyperspectral imaging (HSI) devices, calibrated to new NIST standard reference spectra, which will provide unprecedented perspective on the physiology of tissue injury and healing.
The reliability of trapped-ion quantum information systems – a promising candidate technology for an eventual quantum computer – can be dramatically improved by giving the trap electrodes a good scrub. That’s the conclusion of PML researchers who found that cleaning the electrode surfaces of a room-temperature, gold-film trap with a beam of argon ions produced a 100-fold decrease in thermal jitter of the trapped ions.
During the week of February 6-10, 2012, some extremely weighty matters were in progress at NIST’s non-magnetic facility, where PML researchers hosted an international gravimeter shoot-out with potentially momentous consequences for the impending redefinition of the kilogram.
 Laying the Groundwork for 3D Stacked Integrated CircuitsCould three-dimensional stacked integrated circuits (3DS-ICs) be the next big innovation in technology development? Richard Allen of PML's Semiconductor and Dimensional Metrology Division has already played a role in the development of five separate SEMI standards related to 3DS-ICs.
For climatologists and environmental policy makers who need to determine the flux of greenhouse gases, there are three paramount questions: Where is it, how much is there, and how is it moving? PML is testing a new measurement approach that may provide answers of unprecedented accuracy to all three. Read more...
Much of what is known about decadal climate change comes from satellite-based remote sensing of microwave radiation at different levels in the Earth's atmosphere. Yet, at present, there is no accepted brightness-temperature (radiance) standard for microwaves that can be used for calibration. Read more...
Open-Source Software to Automate Test Equipment A free, easily customizable software program for automating test equipment may sound too good to be true, especially for smaller companies, graduate students, and hobbyists or for day-to-day laboratory work. But that's exactly what the PML's Semiconductor and Dimensional Metrology Division has created. Read more...
UV Lithography: Going to Extremes Sometime soon, microchip fabricators will take the next major step in the relentless reduction of feature size, from the current minimum of 22 nm down to 10 nm and perhaps even smaller. Getting there, however, will entail much more than incremental progress. Read more...
 PML Researchers Create Tool for Circuit Aware Reliability Specs
A PML research team has devised a reliability data transformation methodology that could ease one of the semiconductor industry's most vexing problems: reliability qualification. Read more...
Bright Future for GaN Nanowires PML researchers are growing GaN nanowires with near-perfect crystalline structure using MBE. Potential uses abound, from new light-emitting diodes and diode lasers to ultra-small resonators, chemical sensors, and highly sensitive atomic probe tips. Read more...
The American Physical Society (APS) has named the location of a 1956 breakthrough by NBS scientists -- now on the campus of the University of the District of Columbia -- as an "historic site." Read more...
Until now, it has not been possible to accurately determine the number of photons in a pulse of light if the photon number exceeds about 50. PML researchers devised a method of extending the count to 1000 with extremely low uncertainty. Read more...
The international General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) has approved a plan to redefine four of the seven base units of the International System of Units (SI) in terms of fixed values of natural constants. Read more...
When an interagency team was putting together the next addition to the Earth Observing System satellite fleet, they called in experts from PML's SIRCUS facility to calibrate critical sensors. The results dramatically reduced uncertainties and opened new areas of research. Read more...
The nations of North, Central, and South America share the world's first continuous, near-real-time international time network, thanks in large measure to Mike Lombardi of the Time and Frequency Division, winner of this year's Wildhack Award from the NCSLI. Read more...
Researchers are learning how to control the growth of sizable, high-quality graphene sheets using a promising method: cooking wafers of silicon carbide until the silicon sublimates, leaving behind layers of the celebrity carbon allotrope. Read more...
Tens of millions of clocks are controlled by NIST's venerable AM radio station, WWVB in Ft. Collins, Colorado. But in parts of the United States, distance from the source and radio frequency interference are making it hard to get a clear, strong signal. Read more...
When PML researchers set out to make measurements of unprecedented precision in two isotopes of lithium, they uncovered an unexpected effect that explains why data from different experiments on the same transitions have differed so drastically. Read more...
A quantum dot made by a group in Boulder has helped an international team of researchers "see" a quantum-mechanical process without disturbing it—an achievement long considered impossible, and one that made headlines worldwide. Read more...
The Hyperspectral Image Projector (HIP), now in development in the Sensor Science Division, will make possible high-quality, standardized evaluation of the performance of future optical and infrared imaging instruments by projecting realistic scenes into their sensors. Read more...
 PML Workshop Leads to Safer Flow Calibrations
NIST PML hosted a workshop on turbine meters and hydrocarbon liquid flow measurement to promote the replacement of toxic and flammable calibration liquids with benign ones; discuss the effects of liquid properties on the performance of turbine meters; and report the results of a comparison between 12 labs in the DoD and private industry. Read more...
This Just In! (Archives) Recent Awards |
Taylor Receives Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medal
The World's Most Stable Laser
Simulating the Sun for Photovoltaic Research
PML Goes to Mars: Far-Out Thermal Calibration
Disseminating the Kilogram, No Strings Attached
Combining Optical Techniques to Study Graphene Structures
New High Standards for Emergency Wireless Devices
New Point for Dew Point
PML Reaches out at USA Science and Engineering Festival
Beaming Up on the Way to Space
Petroleum Volume: Getting Calibrations in the Can
Adding Up Photons with a TES
PML Plays a Central Role in Redefining the SI Units
Traveling SIRCUS Calibrates Satellite Sensors
Pioneer of Inter-American Time Network Honored
PML Develops Graphene Fabrication Facility
All Time, All the Time: Improving NIST Radio
Quantum Measurements Solve a Longstanding Problem
NIST Quantum Dot Helps Scientists 'See' Quantum Mechanics at Work
PML Gets HIP: A New Way of Testing Optical Sensors