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Projects/Programs

Topic Area
Displaying 1 - 25 of 81

Aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy

Ongoing
As devices continue to become smaller, more complex, and more highly integrated, atomic scale measurements of their structure, chemistry, strain, and electric field are increasingly crucial for device design, reliability, and optimization. The aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron...

Advanced Microwave Photonics

Ongoing
NIST is home to a broad interdisciplinary program in quantum information science. NIST is exploring multiple implementations of qubits and strategies for taking advantage of quantum effects to compute, simulate, and improve fundamental measurement strategies. Josephson junctions are at the heart of...

Amplifiers

Ongoing
We have developed parametric amplifiers based on two different technologies: Josephson Junctions and superconductors with high kinetic inductance, a representation of the kinetic energy of superconducting Cooper-pair charge carriers. Junction-based parametric amplifiers (JPAs) are well suited for...

Applications of Quantum Information

Ongoing
Human-scale physical phenomenon represent the emergent, complex behavior of simple, microscopic laws. In the past twenty years, improved understanding of these microscopic laws have suggested that typical large-scale systems — those used in modern day technology from transistors to mechanical...

Applied Single-Electron Metrology

Ongoing
Atoms are natural high-fidelity standards. They are used as the basis for time and frequency standards as well as qubits in nascent quantum computer architectures. Electrostatically defined, single-electron devices behave as tunable artificial atoms which can trap, manipulate, and shuttle electrons...

Atomic Spectroscopy Data Center

Ongoing
The Atomic Spectroscopic Data Center at NIST provides the most comprehensive collection of atomic spectroscopy data in the world. We monitor scientific literature and maintain bibliographic databases of all papers containing spectroscopic data. By evaluating and compiling data on energy levels...

Atomic Thermometers

Ongoing
Approach 1 Compact Blackbody Radiation Atomic Sensor (CoBRAS) The Compact Blackbody Radiation Atomic Sensor (CoBRAS) uses a thermal vapor of atoms excited by a single laser to detect BBR. From the optically excited state, atomic population is transferred to other, nearby excited states by a...

Atomic Wavefunctions

Ongoing
The numerical solution of the multi-particle Schrodinger equation describing atomic systems remains a challenging for computational physics. ITL scientists are in the forefront of this field with respect to extremely high-accuracy computation of non-relativistic eigenstates of few electron systems.

Atom-scale Devices: Engineering, Metrology and Manufacturability

Ongoing
For these atomically defined devices, the exact position, type, number of atoms, and their arrangement, dramatically influence device behavior. By controlling the precise atomic makeup and geometry of a device it is possible to engineer a device’s electronic, quantum and mechanical structure to a...

Calibration of Force Transducers

Ongoing
The calibration report describes the relationship between the applied force and the measured deformation, either in electrical or mechanical units. A transducer can be calibrated using (1) a readout device furnished by the customer, in which case the transducer and the readout device are calibrated...

Calibration of Mass Standards

Ongoing
Redefinition of the Kilogram and Consensus Value of the Kilogram The unit of mass was redefined in May 2019 as part of a general revision to the International System of Units (SI). See SI Redefinition. The kilogram is now defined by the Planck constant. The International Prototype Kilogram (IPK) no...

CODATA values of the fundamental physical constants

Ongoing
CODATA recommended values of the constants Database of references for data on the constants Publications: Reviews of Modern Physics ( 1998) ( 2002) ( 2006) ( 2010) ( 2014) ( 2022) Journal of Physical and Chemical Reference Data ( 1998) ( 2006) ( 2010) Resource Letter FC-1: The physics of fundamental...

Cold Core Technology Platform

Ongoing
Cold atoms can be useful sensors for a host of different phenomena including inertial forces like acceleration and rotation, gravity, magnetic fields, vacuum and time. However, most of these applications are still confined to the laboratory. Building robust, field-deployable quantum sensors made...

Connecting Quantum Electronics and Photonics using Silicon Color Centers

Ongoing
Overview: In the first decades of the semiconductor electronics industry, color centers were ubiquitous in silicon. However, through iterative refinement of materials’ processing and spectroscopy methods, color centers are virtually non-existent in commercial silicon today, and leveraging their...

Designing Advanced Scanning Probe Microscopy Instruments

Ongoing
SPM is a general acronym for various probe instruments. The "P" in SPM stands for various types of probe measurements, such as capacitance (C), force (F), tunneling (T), etc. The scanning tunneling microscope (STM), including custom designs at the CNST, uses the quantum mechanical principle of...

Designing the Nanoworld: Nanostructure, Nanodevices, and Nano-optics

Ongoing
Developing and exploiting nanodevices for quantum and nanotechnologies requires nanoscale and atomic scale modeling of ultrasmall structures, devices, their operation, and their response to probes. Key challenges of understanding physics at the quantum/classical interface and measurement at the...

Electron Beam Ion Trap (EBIT) Facility

Ongoing
The NIST EBIT is a table-top device which can produce matter in excess of ten million degrees Kelvin. At these temperatures, even the heaviest atoms shed most of their electrons. The highly charged ions which result are trapped by a configuration of electric and magnetic fields in an ultrahigh...

Electron Spin Resonance at the Single Atom Level

Ongoing
To study electron spin resonance (ESR) on single atoms requires a tool that can probe at atomic length scales. The scanning tunneling microscope (STM) is ideally suited for this, using a tunneling current to probe surfaces. To implement this ESR-STM combination, we send a radio frequency (RF...

Electronic Material Characterization

Ongoing
Manufacturing optimized devices that incorporate newly-emerging materials requires predictable performance throughout device lifetimes. Unexpected degradation in device performance, sometimes leading to failure, is often traceable to poor material reliability. Reliability is rooted in the stability...

Engineered Designer Lattices for Quantum Systems

Ongoing
Exposing the low-dimensional materials to a superlattice periodic potential is an effective way to engineer their electronic and other solid-state properties. One example is the moiré superlattice, created by stacking two-dimensional layers at a twist angle, which leads to novel band structures and...
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