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Material Measurement Laboratory / Chemical Sciences Division

Chemical Process and Nuclear Measurements Group

Projects/Programs

Displaying 1 - 15 of 15
Photograph depicting IC manufacturing showing glowing squares on a round wafer, with a yellow triangular warning indicator labeled UV.

Advanced IC Interconnects - Process Metrology and Models

Ongoing
Atomic layer deposition (ALD) is increasingly being utilized as a method of depositing the thin (nanometer-scale), conformal layers required for many microelectronics applications, including high - gate dielectric layers, diffusion barrier layers, copper seed layers, and DRAM dielectric layers
Interior view of a long, multistory scientific facility filled with large tubular guides, elevated walkways, and electronic instrumentation.

Advanced Materials Characterization

Ongoing
This program seeks to continually enhance the analytical competence of MML and other major operating units at NIST. Furthermore, the program makes available technical capabilities that U.S. industry and government need in their quest to compete on a global scale through improving methods and
Photograph of three Standard Reference Materials of various soil matrices.

Certification of Three Soil SRMs for Inorganic Environmental Measurements

Completed
The three NIST soil SRMs, 2709, 2710 and 2711, have been used worldwide by hundreds of laboratories; combined sales typically exceed 800 units per year. Use of these SRMs provides our customers with tools that are essential for achieving quality assurance in the analysis of contaminant elements in
Photograph of titanium metal crystal with cubic symmetry.

Chemical Metrology for Metals, Ores, and Related Materials

Ongoing
In the arena of industrial commodities, the primary challenges are to provide measurement tools and reference materials that allow U.S. industry to establish comparability of measurement results to results obtained by customers, competitors, and regulators for the basic chemical properties of

Determinations of Boron Deposit Quality by Neutron Depth Profiling

Ongoing
Neutrons are not easily detected with high resolution and good efficiency. Consequently, high-quality neutron detectors remain a challenge to manufacture. A few nuclides such as He-3, Boron-10, and Li-6 are commonly used to convert impinging neutrons into an electrical pulse that post-processing
Photograph of SRM 2669 Arsenic Species in Frozen Human Urine, with vials and desiccant packs, and labeled mylar bag.

Development of SRM 2669 for Accurate Assessment of Arsenic Exposure

Ongoing
Arsenic exposure in the U.S. population is an important part of the NHANES program conducted by CDC because dietary exposure to arsenic can cause serious health effects. A major challenge in the arsenic exposure assessment is that arsenic exists as various species in nature, and the toxicity of
Photograph of a weathered metal surface labeled Danger Toxic Fumes

Instrument Standards for Detection of Hazardous Chemical Vapors

Ongoing
Chemical threat detection is a challenging problem. Contaminants must be accurately identified and quantified often in complex mixtures where non-toxic components can often obscure the measurement. Furthermore, highly toxic chemicals are problematic at low concentrations, requiring ultra-sensitive
Map of the world, with six colors used to identify the six regional metrology organizations.

International Comparisons for Chemical Measurements

Ongoing
International agreements and decisions concerning trade and our social well-being increasingly require mutual recognition of measurements and tests among nations. The Mutual Recognition Arrangement (MRA) on national measurement standards and calibration and measurement certificates issued by NMIs
drawing of hydrogen fuel cell

Measurement Quality in Hydrogen Storage R&D

Ongoing
The hydrogen storage project targets metrologies that assess kinetics and energetics of hydrogen charging and discharging in combinatorial structures as well as the degradation mechanisms that limit life of use. New capabilities are being developed and several existing measurement capabilities are
Metrology is the foundation of the entire semiconductor enterprise. Standards provide the highest “value added” of all processes.

Metrology of Purity and Contaminants in Solid Materials

Ongoing
Purity evaluations of high-purity bulk materials used in chips manufacturing are calibrated against reference materials that are often not matrix-matched to the materials under test. In other words, differences in the compositions of the calibrants and the samples being analyzed can result in large

Plasma Process Metrology

Ongoing
Intended Impact The model for rf bias effects that we have developed should make it easier for industry to select optimal operating frequencies and may stimulate the adoption of new methods for RF biasing, such as multiple-frequency bias and non-sinusoidal bias. NIST studies of electrical endpoint
Photograph of a long pink flame against a black background, emanating from a torch, with small blue cone near the base of the nozzle.

Real Fuels

Ongoing
The variability of the price of oil, the need for energy efficiency and pollution minimization has led to increasing interest in alternative fuels. These fuels are structurally and compositionally different than the conventional fuels presently used.  Past work on conventional fuels have established