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Physical Measurement Laboratory

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NIST/JILA Physicist Wins Optical Society's Meggers Award

April 12, 2011

Steven Cundiff, a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), has received the 2011 William F. Meggers Award from the Optical...

Sharpened Focus: Improving the Numbers, Utility of Medical Imaging

April 12, 2011

The idea of probing the body's interior with radiation stretches back to experiments with X rays in the 1800s, but more than a century later, images taken with...

Collage of images from NIST museum of voltage standards.

Celebrating Superconductivity: NIST Debuts Online Museum of Quantum Voltage Standards

March 30, 2011

On April 8, 2011, the scientific community will celebrate the centennial of the discovery of superconductivity—the ability of certain materials to conduct...

NIST physicist Samuel Benz with the two components that are compared in the first electronic measurement of the Boltzmann constant.

A Measurement First: NIST 'Noise Thermometry' System Measures Boltzmann Constant

March 30, 2011

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have for the first time used an apparatus that relies on the "noise" of jiggling...

The First Non-Trivial Atom Circuit: Progress towards an Atom SQUID

March 30, 2011

Researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Maryland (UM) have created the first nontrivial "atom circuit,"...

Charge It: Neutral Atoms Made to Act Like Electrically Charged Particles

March 30, 2011

Completing the story they started by creating synthetic magnetic fields, scientists from the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI), a collaboration of the National...

NIST to Cosponsor Conference in France on Nanoelectronics Metrology

March 15, 2011

Registration is now open for the eighth international Frontiers of Characterization and Metrology for Nanoelectronics conference, cosponsored by the National...

Colorized micrograph of NIST's aluminum drum

NIST Electromechanical Circuit Sets Record Beating Microscopic 'Drum'

March 9, 2011

BOULDER, Colo.—Physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have demonstrated an electromechanical circuit in which microwaves...

CNST Researchers Use Spin Waves to Measure Magnetic Polarization of Electrical Current

March 7, 2011

In the hard drive industry, the rapid growth of storage density has been propelled in part by developments in the sensors used to read the magnetic "bits" on...

ultracold gas of nearly 200,000 rubidium-87 atoms

JQI Physicists Demonstrate Coveted 'Spin-Orbit Coupling' for the First Time in Ultracold Atomic Gases

March 2, 2011

GAITHERSBURG, Md.—Physicists at the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI), a collaboration of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the...

NIST, Food Marketing Institute Co-Host Webinar on Ensuring Accurate Net Weights in Retail

March 1, 2011

A reliable and trustworthy system of weights and measures is vital for economic activity. Maintaining that system requires constant vigilance, and that's where...

CNST Research Elucidates the Effect of Disorder on Magnetic Vortex Gyration

February 28, 2011

Much of the world's information is stored in memories consisting of magnetic domains, and researchers continue to develop new domain arrangements to enable...

Quantum Hot Potato: NIST Researchers Entice Two Atoms to Swap Smallest Energy Units

February 23, 2011

BOULDER, Colo.—Physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have for the first time coaxed two atoms in separate locations to take...

Etched Quantum Dots Shape Up as Single Photon Emitters, NIST Tests Show

February 22, 2011

Like snowflakes or fingerprints, no two quantum dots are identical. But a new etching method for shaping and positioning these semiconductor nanocrystals might...

Here Comes the Sun: NIST Radio Station WWVH in Hawaii Adds Solar Power

February 15, 2011

The sun is now a significant power source for the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) radio station WWVH, which broadcasts time of day, marine...

Cross-section of a high-temperature superconducting cable design invented at NIST.

Compact High-Temperature Superconducting Cables Demonstrated at NIST

February 10, 2011

A researcher at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has invented a method of making high-temperature superconducting (HTS) cables that are...

two red bars: one horizontal and one vertical. Green cones come out of the middle where they intersect.

Quantum Quirk: JILA Scientists Pack Atoms Together to Prevent Collisions in Atomic Clock

February 3, 2011

BOULDER, Colo.—In a paradox typical of the quantum world, JILA scientists have eliminated collisions between atoms in an atomic clock by packing the atoms...

NIST researcher Dawn Cross calibrating a mercury thermometer

End of an Era: NIST to Cease Calibrating Mercury Thermometers

February 2, 2011

Beginning March 1, 2011, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) will no longer provide calibration services for mercury thermometers. The...

CNST and LBL Researchers Develop a Full Numerical Model of EUV Imaging and Exposure Statistics

January 24, 2011

The tolerances on feature size, shape, and placement for next generation computer chips fabricated with extreme ultra-violet (EUV) lithography will range from a...

NIST Advances Single Photon Management for Quantum Computers

January 19, 2011

The quantum computers of tomorrow might use photons, or particles of light, to move around the data they need to make calculations, but photons are tricky to...

New Wave: JILA Develops Efficient Source of Terahertz Radiation

January 19, 2011

JILA researchers have developed a laser-based source of terahertz radiation that is unusually efficient and less prone to damage than similar systems. The...

NIST Physicist Joseph Stroscio Named Among 2010 AAAS Fellows

January 19, 2011

Joseph Stroscio, a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), has been named a Fellow of the American Association for the...

Stretching, the Truth: JILA Biophysicists Help Unravel DNA Stretching Mystery

January 19, 2011

Using a new experimental test structure, biophysicists at JILA have unraveled part of a 15-year mystery in the mechanics of DNA—just how the molecule manages to...

Real-World Graphene Devices May Have a Bumpy Ride

January 19, 2011

Electronics researchers love graphene. A two-dimensional sheet of carbon one atom thick, graphene is like a superhighway for electrons, which rocket through the...

Schematic of flat electron wavefronts twisted into a fan of helices using a very thin film with a 5-micron-diameter pattern of nanoscale slits

NIST Puts a New Twist on the Electron Beam

January 13, 2011

Electron microscopes are among the most widely used scientific and medical tools for studying and understanding a wide range of materials, from biological...

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