Materials characterization

News and Updates

Five fragments of moon dust glow in bright colors on a black background.

Measuring the Moon’s Nano Dust Is No Small Matter

April 28, 2021

Like a chameleon of the night sky, the Moon often changes its appearance. It might look larger, brighter or redder, for example, due to its phases, its position

NIST Study Finds Ideal Doping Concentration and 3D/2D Structure to Prevent Degradation of Potential Solar Power Material

April 19, 2021

The crystal known as perovskite is a promising photovoltaic material for harnessing energy from sunlight. Perovskites have several advantages over silicon, the

A red cylinder made of lipids has five protruding multicolored proteins.

NIST Clarifies Structure of Prospective Vaccine for Respiratory Virus

December 16, 2020

No approved vaccine exists for RSV, a life-threatening virus that attacks the respiratory system. State-of-the-art neutron and X-ray scattering performed at the

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

Texture Evolution as a Function of Scan Strategy and Build Height in Electron Beam Melted Ti-6Al-4V

June 12, 2021

Author(s)

Alec Saville, Sven Vogel, Adam Abel Creuziger, Jake Benzing, Adam Pilchak, Lee Semiatin, Peeyush Nandwana, Kester Clarke, Jonah Klemm-Toole, Amy Clarke

Metal additive manufacturing (AM) enables customizable, on-demand parts, allowing for new designs and improved engineering performance. Unfortunately, the

Database of Ab Initio L-edge X-ray Absorption Near Edge Structure

June 11, 2021

Author(s)

Yiming Chen, Chi Chen, Chen Zheng, Shyam Dwaraknath, Matthew K. Horton, Jordi Cabana, John J. Rehr, John T. Vinson, Alan K. Dozier, Kristin A. Persson, Shyue P. Ong

The L-edge X-ray Absorption Near Edge Structure (XANES) is widely used in the characterization of transition metal compounds. Here, we report the development of

NIST Software Package for Obtaining Charpy Transition Curves

May 11, 2021

Author(s)

Enrico Lucon, Jolene Splett, Amanda Koepke, David Newton

NIST has developed a software package that allows users to fit test results obtained from Charpy or toughness tests as a function of test temperature, thereby

Wide-Band-Gap Mixed-Halide 3D Perovskites: Electronic Structure and Halide Segregation Investigation

May 10, 2021

Author(s)

Siyuan Zhang, Ming Chun Tang, Nhan V. Nguyen, Thomas D. Anthopoulos, Christina A. Hacker

Mixed-halide organolead perovskites (MAPbX3) are of great interest for both single junction and tandem solar cells because their bandgap can be effectively

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

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

Focused Ion Beam (Helios 660)

The Helios 660 NanoLab(HNL660) is a Focused Ion Beam Scanning Electron Microscope equipped with spectroscopic detectors to allow elemental and phase

Materials characterization