Small Force Metrology

The Small Force Metrology project supports U.S. instrumentation vendors, academic researchers, government scientists, and a broad spectrum of industrial physicists, physical chemists, biophysicists, and materials scientists who seek accuracy in verifying the forces measured by instrumented indentation equipment and atomic force microscopes (AFM). The forces measured by these instruments range from tens of piconewtons in single-molecule biophysical studies of disease therapies, to tens of millinewtons in studies of new dielectric coatings for metals and semiconductors.

In direct response to these customer needs, this project focuses on creating the means to achieve SI traceability for small force measurement and instrumentation, and includes the development and testing of internationally-accepted primary and secondary standards of force in the regime below 10-3 N, exploration of atomic and single-molecule forces as potential intrinsic standards and references, and the development of new instrument platforms at NIST that are capable of realizing ever smaller values of force in terms of traceably realized SI base units and quantum invariants.