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NIST Center for Neutron Research

News and Updates

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NIST Scientists Reveal the Power Behind the Curtain — With Neutrons

September 16, 2020

In a potential step forward for imaging technology, scientists from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Sandia National Laboratories...

A Crazier Crazy Straw for Science

July 28, 2020

What do the loopy straws that children like to sip drinks through have in common with cutting-edge science? Ask Ryan Murphy and his colleagues at the National...

A woman stands in front of a wall full of knobs and switches.

Spotlight: Meet Meagan Nydegger, the First Female Chief of Reactor Operations at the NIST Center for Neutron Research

June 23, 2020

Visit any technical institution and you can expect to find engineers in a wide range of different fields. Visit the NIST Center for Neutron Research (NCNR), and...

Two vertical strings of electrons form magnons. Spin waves passing through the left magnon string are larger than those passing through the right, indicating the difference between an on and off state.

MIT, NIST Create First Room-Temp ‘Magnon Switch’ With Industrially Useful Properties

June 15, 2020

Scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have demonstrated a potentially new...

Small variations in bottlebrush polymers result in measurable changes

February 24, 2020

NIST scientists have found that very small changes in the structure of bottlebrush polymers prepared by “precision synthesis” result in measurable differences...

Polarized Neutron and Condensed Matter Investigations (PNCMI) 2020 - Postponed

February 13, 2020

The Covid-19 pandemic is developing quickly worldwide. As we ensure that the health and safety of our attendees, staff, and operational personnel in the...

Spotlight: NCNR Microwave Instrument Installation

December 18, 2019

Deep inside the NIST Center for Neutron Research (NCNR), scientists assembled a new instrument to explore materials that could be important for quantum...

Newfound Superconductor Material Could Be the ‘Silicon of Quantum Computers’

August 15, 2019

A potentially useful material for building quantum computers has been unearthed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), whose scientists...

left: illustration of traditional ethylene extraction. Graphic shows a cold thermometer. right: illustration showing use of MOFs

Novel Material Could Make Plastic Manufacturing More Energy-Efficient

October 25, 2018

An innovative filtering material may soon reduce the environmental cost of manufacturing plastic. Created by a team including scientists at the National...

New NIST Instrument Will Give Scientists a Window on Change at the Nanoscale

September 26, 2018

It looks more like a long water main pipe than a microscope, but a new custom-built instrument at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)...

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...

Technical Support

May 15, 2018

NIST’s nSoft consortium helps product developers solve difficult problems by giving them access to a powerful tool, unlike anything in an industry R&D lab, for...

Movable Silicon ‘Lenses’ Enable Neutrons to See New Range of Details Inside Objects

March 12, 2018

You can’t see well without lenses that can focus, whether those lenses are in your eye or the microscope you peer through. An innovative new way to focus beams...

NIST’s NeXT Trick Will Fill Your Eyes With That Double Vision

November 30, 2017

Superman’s X-ray vision has nothing on Jake LaManna’s. For the past couple of years, LaManna, an engineer at the National Institute of Standards and Technology...

Nanoparticles can make polymers flow more easily

April 5, 2017

Press release paper in Physical Review Letters

Call for proposals

February 1, 2017 - March 14, 2017

PROPOSAL FORMS PROPOSAL INSTRUCTIONS (including TIPS ON PROPOSAL WRITING) PROPOSAL REVIEW AND BEAM TIME ALLOCATION OBTAINING SITE ACCESS Deadline The...

President Obama Honors Federally-Funded Early-Career Scientists

January 10, 2017

On Jan. 9, 2017, President Obama named 102 scientists and researchers as recipients of the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE...

NIST Collaboration Heats Up Exotic Topological Insulators

October 31, 2016

Fashion is changing in the avant-garde world of next-generation computer component materials. Traditional semiconductors like silicon are releasing their last...

This magneto-ionic thin film, made primarily of aluminum oxide, gadolinium oxide and cobalt, allows oxygen ions to travel up and down through spaces between the layers when pushed by an electric field.

NIST Reveals Valuable Fundamentals of a Stacked, Cracked Jack of All Trades

July 22, 2016

There is a crack in everything, Leonard Cohen sang; that's how the light gets in. Now a team led by scientists from the National Institute of Standards and...

Right Size + Right Chemistry = Right Stuff for Plastics Manufacturing

May 19, 2016

Plastic manufacturing is an energy-intensive process. Now, research performed in part at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has revealed...

cobalt disk (red) atop a thin cobalt-palladium film (light purple background)

NIST, UC Davis Scientists Float New Approach to Creating Computer Memory

October 8, 2015

What can skyrmions do for you? These ghostly quantum rings, heretofore glimpsed only under extreme laboratory conditions, just might be the basis for a new type...

Neutron Beams Reveal How Two Potential Pieces of Parkinson's Puzzle Fit

January 29, 2015

To understand diseases like Parkinson's, the tiniest of puzzles may hold big answers. That's why a team including scientists from the National Institute of...

Novel Sodium-Conducting Material Could Improve Rechargeable Batteries

November 4, 2014

Rechargeable battery manufacturers may get a jolt from research performed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and several other...

NCNR Neutrons Highlight Possible Battery Candidate

May 20, 2014

Analysis of a manganese-based crystal by scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology...

From Separation to Transformation: Metal-Organic Framework Shows New Talent

May 20, 2014

This gift from science just keeps on giving. Measurements taken at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) show why a material already known...

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