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What could be better than a world-leading atomic clock? Two clocks in one. Physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have combined...
In science, sometimes the best discoveries come when you’re exploring something else entirely. That’s the case with recent findings from the National Institute...
Fundamental constants are physical quantities that are universal in nature. For example, the speed of light in vacuum and the charge of a single electron are...
If you spend time in physics research circles, you may have heard of the big G controversy. The universal constant of gravitation, G – affectionately known as...
For the first time in a laboratory setting, NIST scientists have made stop-action x-ray measurements of the way visible light interacts with atoms and molecules...
NIST has recently made substantial improvements to its Johnson-noise thermometry system, which is playing a vital role in the worldwide effort to determine the...
When is a traffic jam not a traffic jam? When it's a quantum traffic jam, of course. Only in quantum physics can traffic be standing still and moving at the...
BOULDER, Colo.-- JILA physicists and colleagues have identified a long-missing piece in the puzzle of exactly how fossil fuel combustion contributes to air...
A recently developed CNST software package that designs difficult-to-draw nanoscale shapes, including spirals, S-bends, and tapered structures is now available...
For the first time, a team including scientists from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have used neutron beams to create holograms of...
BOULDER, Colo. – JILA physicists have demonstrated a novel laser design based on synchronized emissions of light from the same type of atoms used in advanced...
For James Kushmerick, who became the deputy director of CNST on Oct. 3, joining the Center “feels like I’m getting back to my roots.” In 1994, Kushmerick was...
Until recently, if a company wanted the best measurements in the world for the physical dimensions of one of its dimensional standards, it had to book time on...
If your work involves sensing, measuring or using ultraviolet light, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has great news for you: Granite...
Physicist Deborah Jin, a world leader in exotic states of matter called ultracold quantum gases, passed away September 15, 2016, from cancer. She was 47 years...
Individual photons of light now can be detected far more efficiently using a device patented by a team including the National Institute of Standards and...
From the printing press to the jet engine, mechanical machines with moving parts have been a mainstay of technology for centuries. As U.S. industry develops...
Precision time signals sent through the Global Positioning System (GPS) synchronize cellphone calls, time-stamp financial transactions, and support safe travel...
Explosive growth of cyanobacteria, also called blue-green algae, is nothing new. In fact, such cyanobacteria probably produced the original oxygen in Earth's...
Laser applications may benefit from crystal research by scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and China's Shandong University...
After it's all over, your lights will be just as bright, and your refrigerator just as cold. But very soon the ampere -- the SI base unit of electrical current...
Photons are bizarre: They have no mass, but they do have momentum. And that allows researchers to do counterintuitive things with photons, such as using light...
Shrink rays may exist only in science fiction, but similar effects are at work in the real world at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)...
Katharine Blodgett Gebbie, a visionary physicist and senior government research administrator who supervised and mentored four Nobel laureates in physics, died...
NIST scientists have devised and modeled a unique optical method of sorting microscopic and nanoscopic particles by size, with a resolution as fine as 1...