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

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

PTIR combines the spatial resolution of AFM with the specificity of absorption spectroscopy

Nano-Chemical Imaging and -Spectroscopy (IR, nIR, VIS)

Conventional techniques for analyzing chemical composition, such as infrared (IR) microscopy often miss critically important nanoscale details. To overcome this

Neuromorphic Device Measurements

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

Publications

NexusLIMS: A Laboratory Information Management System for Shared-Use Electron Microscopy Facilities

April 28, 2021

Author(s)

Joshua A. Taillon, Thomas F. Bina, Raymond L. Plante, Marcus W. Newrock, Gretchen R. Greene, June W. Lau

This work introduces NexusLIMS, an electron microscopy laboratory information management system designed and implemented by the Office of Data and Informatics

A portable triaxial cell for beamline imaging of rocks under triaxial state of stress

April 21, 2021

Author(s)

Amer Syed, Yukie Tanino, Jacob LaManna, David Jacobson, Daniel Hussey, Elias Baltic, Genoveva Burca

With recent developments in direct imaging techniques using x-ray and neutron imaging, there is an increasing need for an efficient design of a test setup to

Optical spectra and interfacial band offsets of pulse-laser-deposited metal-oxides: SnO2, TiO2, and ZnO

April 2, 2021

Author(s)

Nhan V. Nguyen, Nam Nguyen, Jason Hattrick-Simpers, Oleg A. Kirillov, Martin Green

Transparent conducting oxides are electrically conductive materials with high optical transmittance in the visible region of the spectrum and are useful in a

DART-MS Spectral Similarity of Infrared Thermally Desorbed Solid Particulate and Solution Cast Propellant Samples

March 4, 2021

Author(s)

Thomas Forbes, John Gillen

Security and forensic applications employ test and reference materials to develop, calibrate, and validate analytical instrumentation such as mass spectrometry

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

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

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

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

Polarized resonant soft X-ray scattering (PR-SoXS) is an emerging powerhouse characterization of soft materials, providing an ability to characterize spatial

Materials characterization