Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Physical Measurement Laboratory

News and Updates

Keyword

Topic Area

New Device Widens Light Beams by 400 Times, Broadening Possibilities in Science and Technology

November 27, 2018

By using light waves instead of electric current to transmit data, photonic chips—circuits for light—have advanced fundamental research in many areas from...

White Cat Hair on Black Pants: International Study Measures Stability of Precision Masses to Benefit Trade

November 26, 2018

When are two nominally identical kilogram masses no longer identical? When each goes to a different place and adsorbs varying amounts of moisture and...

JILA Researchers See Signs of Interactive Form of Quantum Matter

October 31, 2018

JILA researchers have, for the first time, isolated groups of a few atoms and precisely measured their multi-particle interactions within an atomic clock. The...

Nanofabulous: An intern who mentored interns

October 30, 2018

When NanoFab intern Patricio Flores donned a bunny suit for the first time last January, he had never been inside a cleanroom or worked with the precision tools...

A New Way to Measure Nearly Nothing

October 19, 2018

Many semiconductor fabricators and research labs are under increasing pressure from, of all things, vacuum. These facilities need to remove greater amounts of...

NIST Launches Consortium to Support Development of Quantum Industry

September 28, 2018

GAITHERSBURG, Md.—The U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has signed a cooperative research and development...

NIST’s Electro-Optic Laser Pulses 100 Times Faster Than Usual Ultrafast Light

September 27, 2018

Physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have used common electronics to build a laser that pulses 100 times more often than...

NIST Updates Forensic Standard Reference Materials

September 19, 2018

At forensic science labs, analysts literally weigh the evidence. They also measure it in other ways. They use microscopes, DNA profiling kits, chemical...

Introducing the ‘Smart Mirror’

September 17, 2018

Lasers play roles in many manufacturing processes, from welding car parts to crafting engine components with 3D printers.* To control these tasks, manufacturers...

Transparent image shaped like wedding cake atop a honeycomb-like lattice with green squiggly lines

A Novel Graphene Quantum Dot Structure Takes the Cake

August 23, 2018

In a marriage of quantum science and solid-state physics, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have used magnetic fields to...

An electron micrograph showing many blue-colored nanoscale (billionth of a meter) particles of varying sizes and shapes scattered atop a silicon wafer.

Connecting the (Nano) Dots: NIST Says Big-Picture Thinking Can Advance Nanoparticle Manufacturing

August 22, 2018

Nanoparticle manufacturing, the production of material units less than 100 nanometers in size (100,000 times smaller than a marble), is proving the adage that...

Helping the Microchip Industry Go (Very Low) with the Flow

August 22, 2018

A new study by scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has uncovered a source of error in an industry-standard calibration...

Exactly how loud is that jackhammer?

August 17, 2018

When a jackhammer starts pounding outside your window at 7 o’clock on a Monday morning, you might find it annoying. For the worker who is running that...

NIST Chip Lights Up Optical Neural Network Demo

July 26, 2018

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have made a silicon chip that distributes optical signals precisely across a miniature...

The Shape in Water

July 23, 2018

Tinkering with a method they helped develop over the last few years, scientists have for the first time used it to measure at the nanometer scale the...

Through a Prism Brightly: A New Way to Measure the Light-Warping Properties of Hyperbolic Metamaterials

June 18, 2018

Manipulating light in a variety of ways—shrinking its wavelength and allowing it to travel freely in one direction while stopping it cold in another--hyperbolic...

Two seated people in bunny suits look at a bluish computer image

NIST Neutron Detection Method: Long-Sought Workaround to Helium Shortage?

June 11, 2018

Doctors use X-rays to see inside people, and scientists use neutrons to peer inside advanced materials and devices such as fuel cells to better understand and...

A New Way to Measure Energy in Microscopic Machines

June 8, 2018

What drives cells to live and engines to move? It all comes down to a quantity that scientists call “free energy,” essentially the energy that can be extracted...

Cartoon with man standing on falling blue cube representing Earth, decorated with clumps of clock faces, with yellow sun at right.

NIST Atomic Clock Comparison Confirms Key Assumptions of ‘Einstein’s Elevator’

June 4, 2018

By comparing different types of remote atomic clocks, physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have performed the most accurate...

Convective Accelerometer

May 24, 2018

NIST’s Michael Gaitan and his colleagues patented a new type of acceleration sensor in the late 1990s. Known as the “convective accelerometer,” it uses heated...

CNST Releases Spring 2018 Edition of the CNST News

May 22, 2018

The NIST Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology (CNST) is pleased to announce the release of the Spring 2018 edition of the CNST News. This quarterly...

NIST Puts the Optical Microscope Under the Microscope to Achieve Atomic Accuracy

May 22, 2018

Over the last two decades, scientists have discovered that the optical microscope can be used to detect, track and image objects much smaller than their...

Neutrons by the Numbers

May 21, 2018

After years of research, scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed and demonstrated a way to count the absolute...

illustration. gray disk. green rods come up from the disk.

Hanging by a Nanowhisker

May 9, 2018

If Alexander Yulaev and his colleagues had their druthers, they’d do away with whiskers altogether. These scientists don’t have anything against facial hair...

Man standing working on a silicon carbide device

NIST Electronics Engineer Named Service to America Medal Finalist

May 7, 2018

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) researcher Allen R. Hefner, Jr., has been named a finalist for the 2018 Samuel J. Heyman Service to...

Was this page helpful?

Advanced communications
-Open Radio Access Network (Open-RAN)
-Quantum communications
-Spectrum sharing
-Wireless (RF)
Artificial intelligence
-AI measurement and evaluation
-Autonomous systems
--Automated vehicles
--Autonomous laboratories
-Applied AI
-Fundamental AI
-Hardware for AI
-Machine learning
-Trustworthy and responsible AI
Bioscience
-Bioeconomy
--Biological data
-Bioimaging
-Bioinformatics
-Biomanufacturing
-Biomaterials
-Biometrology
-Biosecurity
--Biosurveillance
--Genomic cybersecurity
--Nucleic acid sequence screening
-Cell measurements
-Engineering / synthetic biology
--Biofabrication
--Cell-free systems
--Genome engineering
--Protein engineering
-Gene delivery systems
-Genome editing
-Genomics
-Glycomics
-Metabolomics
-Microbial measurements
-Proteomics
Buildings and construction
-Building codes and standards
-Building control systems
-Building damage and repair
-Building economics
-Building materials
-Energy efficiency
-Heating, ventilation and air conditioning equipment
-Indoor air quality
-Structural engineering
-Thermal comfort
Chemistry
-Analytical chemistry
-Chemical engineering and processing
-Chemical thermodynamics and chemical properties
-Molecular characterization
-Theoretical chemistry and modeling
-Thermochemical properties
Electronics
-Electromagnetics
-Flexible electronics
-Magnetoelectronics
-Optoelectronics
-Organic electronics
-Semiconductors
-Sensors
-Superconducting electronics
Energy
-Alternative energy
-Conventional energy
-Electric power / smart grid
-Fuels
Environment
-Air / water / soil quality
-Climate measurements
-Environmental health
-Greenhouse gas measurements
-Marine science
-Sustainability
Fire
-Fire detection
-Fire dynamics and science
-Fire fighting
-Fire modeling
-Fire risk reduction
-Materials flammability
-Structural fire resistance
-Wildland urban interface fire
Forensic science
-Digital evidence
-Drugs and toxicology
-Firearms and toolmarks
-Forensic biometrics
-Forensic genetics
-Trace evidence
Health
-Biopharmaceuticals
-Cell and gene therapy
-Clinical diagnostics
--Cancer
--Medical imaging
-Food and nutrition
-Human microbiome
-Precision medicine
-Regenerative medicine and advanced therapy
--Flow cytometry
Information technology
-Biometrics
-Cloud computing and virtualization
-Complex systems
-Computational science
-Conformance testing
-Cyber-physical systems
--Smart cities
-Cybersecurity and privacy
--Cryptography
--Cybersecurity education and workforce development
--Cybersecurity measurement
--Identity and access management
--Privacy engineering
--Risk management
--Securing emerging technologies
--Trustworthy networks
--Trustworthy platforms
-Data and informatics
--Human language technology
--Information retrieval
--Natural language processing
-Digital twins
-Federal information processing standards (FIPS)
-Health IT
-Internet of Things (IoT)
-Interoperability testing
-Location based services
-Mobile
-Networking
--Mobile and wireless networking
--Network management and monitoring
--Network modeling and analysis
--Network security and robustness
--Network test and measurement
--Next generation networks
--Protocol design and standardization
--Software defined and virtual networks
-Software research
--Software testing
-Usability and human factors
--Accessibility
-Video analytics
-Virtual / augmented reality
-Visualization research
-Voting systems
Infrastructure
Manufacturing
-Additive manufacturing
-Factory communications
-Factory operations planning and control
-Interoperability in manufacturing
-Machining
-Manufacturing economics
-Manufacturing quality assurance
-Manufacturing systems design and analysis
-Monitoring, diagnostics and prognostics
-Process improvement
-Process measurement and control
-Product data
-Robotics
--Agility and adaptability
--Collaborative robots
--Dexterous grasping
--Manipulation
--Mobility and industrial autonomous vehicles
--Navigation / actuation / control
--Sensing and perception
-Supply chain
-Sustainable manufacturing
-Systems engineering
-Systems integration
-Technology commercialization
Materials
-Ceramics
-Composites
-Concrete / cement
-Materials characterization
--Composition and structure
--Mechanical properties
--Thermal properties
-Metals
-Modeling and computational material science
-Polymers
-Superconductors
Mathematics and statistics
-Experiment design
-Image and signal processing
-Modeling and simulation research
-Numerical methods and software
-Statistical analysis
-Uncertainty quantification
Metrology
-Amount of substance
-Dimensional metrology
-Electrical / electromagnetic metrology
-Flow metrology and rheology
-Force metrology
-Humidity metrology
-Ionizing radiation metrology
-Mass metrology
-Metric
-Optical / photometry / laser metrology
-Pressure and vacuum metrology
-Thermometry metrology
-Time and frequency metrology
-Weights and measures
Nanotechnology
-Nanobiotechnology
-Nanochemistry
-Nanoelectronics
-Nanofabrication / manufacturing
--Lithography
--Self-assembly
-Nanofluidics
-Nanomagnetics
-Nanomaterials
-Nanomechanics
-Nanometrology
-Nanophotonics
-Nanophysics
-Nanoplasmonics
Neutron research
Performance excellence
-Assessment tools and services
-Baldrige award
-Baldrige examiners
-Baldrige framework and criteria
-Best practices
-Leadership development
Physics
-Atomic / molecular / quantum
-Biological physics
-Condensed matter
-Electron physics
-Magnetics
-Nuclear physics
-Optical physics and communications
-Quantum information science
-Radiation
-Spectroscopy
-Thermodynamics
-Time and frequency
Public safety
-Chemical / Biological / Radiological / Nuclear / Explosives (CBRNE)
-First responder preparedness
-Law enforcement
-Public safety communications research
-Response robots
Resilience
-Community resilience
--Recovery
--Resilience metrics
-Disaster and failure studies
-Earthquake risk reduction
-Resilience economics
-Resilient materials
-Windstorm impact reduction
Standards
-Accreditation
-Calibration services
-Conformity assessment
-Documentary standards
-Frameworks
-Quality assurance
-Reference data
-Reference instruments
-Reference materials
-Standards education
Technology transfer
Transportation
-Aerospace
-Automotive