Materials characterization

News and Updates

NIST, Collaborators Develop Sensitive New Way of Detecting Transistor Defects

October 7, 2021

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and collaborators have devised and tested a new, highly sensitive method of detecting

Groundbreaking Technique Yields Important New Details on Silicon, Subatomic Particles and Possible ‘Fifth Force’

September 9, 2021

Using a groundbreaking new technique at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), an international collaboration led by NIST researchers has

Neutrons Help Measure Cell Membrane Viscosity — and Reveal Its Basis

August 12, 2021

We now have a clearer picture of the lightning-fast molecular dance occurring within the membrane that encloses each cell in our body, revealed in part by

Projects and Programs

Electric-acoustic spectroscopy for intermolecular interactions in solution

NIST’s Material Measurement Laboratory and Communications Technology Laboratory are developing a new spectroscopy for intermolecular interactions. The team is

Neuromorphic Device Measurements

Neuromorphic computing is a radical new approach to information processing for artificial intelligence where, instead of using digital electronics, inspiration

Femtosecond Nonlinear Optical Spectroscopy of Nanoscale Materials

Condensed matter dynamics can evolve on a subpicosecond timescale, too fast to follow using many characterization techniques. We use femtosecond optical pulses

Optical and Optoelectronic Materials Characterization

This project aims to develop rigorous measurements and methodology needed for determining optical and electrical properties of advanced materials that might be

Publications

An assessment of different approaches for measuring crack sizes in fatigue and fracture mechanics specimens

October 8, 2021

Author(s)

Enrico Lucon

Several fatigue and fracture mechanics test standards prescribe the use of fatigue precracked specimens, and measured initial and final crack sizes are required

STEM-in-SEM Imaging and Diffraction with Extremely Beam Sensitive Ultrathin Zeolites

October 5, 2021

Author(s)

Jason Holm

STEM-in-SEM: A Re-Emerging Material Measurement Approach

September 21, 2021

Author(s)

Robert Keller

Analytical STEM-in-SEM has undergone a striking resurgence in terms of both methodology development and applications over the past 10 to 15 years, driven in

Comparative Operando XPS and SEM Spatiotemporal Potential Mapping of Ionic Liquid Polarization in a Coplanar Electrochemical Device

September 21, 2021

Author(s)

Andrei Kolmakov, Evgheni Strelcov

The polarization response of a co-planar electrochemical capacitor covered with an ionic liquid as the electrolyte has been examined by a combination of two

Software

NIST DTSA-II

February 1, 2018

NIST DTSA-II builds on the best available algorithms in the literature to simulate, quantify and plan energy dispersive x-ray analysis measurements.

Custom Lifetime Imaging Platform (CLIP)

CLIP is an analysis program for fluorescence lifetime images. It provides the user with the ability to fit or calculate the phasor plots for lifetime decays

Tools and Instruments

A picture of the NIST resonant soft xray instrument and visiting NIST scientists

Polarized Resonant Soft X-ray Scattering (P-RSoXS)

Built with a collaboration with the RSoXS project in the NIST Materials Science and Engineering Division, polarized resonant soft X-ray scattering (P-RSoXS) is

Positron Annihilation Lifetime Spectrometer

Positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy uses positrons to probe material defects/voids/free volume at the sub-nm scale. The general working principle is

Cabinet x-ray system

The Smiths Detection 6046si cabinet x-ray system was designed for security screening of bags, parcels and other objects of similar size. The system runs at 160

Atom Probe Tomography (LEAP 4000X Si/HR – Local Electrode Atom Probe)

LEAP 4000X Si/HR Imaging time-of-flight mass spectrometer and field ion microscope. Can deliver 3-D, isotopically- and chemically- resolved images Sub-nanometer

Materials characterization