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Material Measurement Laboratory

Materials Science and Engineering Division

News and Updates

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Coining Less Expensive Currency

June 20, 2018

Nickels are ubiquitous in American life, tumbling around in pockets, rolling under car seats, and emerging from the back of dryers to be used over and over for

Can This Invasive Exotic Pest Make Better Materials for Industry and Medicine?

May 4, 2018

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have combined derivatives of two surplus materials—wood pulp and dried-up pieces of an

Model Behavior

March 15, 2018

NIST is helping additive manufacturing, often referred to as 3D printing, mature from a potentially disruptive technology into a widespread industrial

The image shows two regions with opposing chiral antiferromagnetic domains (gray/black) in the chiral antiferromagnet Mn3Sn.

Study Identifies Metallic Antiferromagnet with Potential for Memory Devices

January 29, 2018

Antiferromagnets have generated significant interest for future computing technologies due to their fast dynamics, their ability to generate and detect spin

Photo of police officer from behind wearing body armor labeled Police

A New Way to Test Body Armor

October 16, 2017

Scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed a new way to investigate the high-performance fibers used in modern body

Silk Sensor Could Speed Development of New Infrastructure, Aerospace and Consumer Materials

March 17, 2017

Consumers want fuel-efficient vehicles and high-performance sporting goods, municipalities want weather-resistant bridges, and manufacturers want more efficient

Strips of magnetic material sit atop blocks of a nonmagnetic heavy metal

Better Nanoimages 'Spin' The Path to Improved Magnetic Memory

March 16, 2017

In work that could help make possible a faster, longer-lasting and lower-energy method of data storage for consumers and businesses, researchers at the National

Materials Extrusion Additive Manufacturing

NIST Releases Roadmap for Polymer-Based Additive Manufacturing

December 12, 2016

Additive manufacturing (AM) is a high-priority technology growth area for U.S. manufacturers. Innovative AM processes that fabricate parts layer-by-layer

Novel 3-in-1 “Rheo-Raman” Microscope Enables Interconnected Studies of Soft Materials

October 4, 2016

An innovative three-in-one instrument that allows scientists to correlate the flowability of soft “gooey” materials such as gels, molten polymers and biological

Let’s Roll: Material for Polymer Solar Cells May Lend Itself to Large-Area Processing

August 12, 2016

For all the promise they have shown in the lab, polymer solar cells still need to “get on a roll” like the ones employed in printing newspapers so that large

Illustration of prefilling a carbon nanotube with a desired chemical of known properties.

Simpler, Faster and Cheaper: A Full-filling Approach to Making Carbon Nanotubes of Consistent Quality

July 15, 2016

Just as many of us might be resigned to clogged salt shakers or rush-hour traffic, those working to exploit the special properties of carbon nanotubes have

A Crack in the Mystery of 'Oobleck'—Friction Thickens Fluids

May 5, 2016

By revealing missing details behind the odd behavior of a science fair favorite—a soupy mixture known as "oobleck" that switches back and forth between liquid

Model "patchy" particles self-assemble and provide guidance for understanding the nature of self-assembly in more complicated systems such as protein solutions.

How Do Nature’s Materials Stack Up? “Patchy” Framework Offers New Insights into Self-Assembly

April 19, 2016

Nature’s toolkit includes its still-matchless ability to effortlessly assemble proteins, membranes and other complex structures from parts lists of atoms

black and white image that looks like a dust bunny

Mixing Modern Materials? NIST Math App Helps You Manage Your Mashup

December 22, 2015

Imagine you're baking a special cake, one in which the shape of each mote of spice mixed into the batter can have a profound effect on your dessert's color, its

NIST Process Expands Catalyst Options for Electrolysis and Fuel Cells

November 19, 2015

Remember that pair of gold electroplated earrings you bought years ago at the mall? (Oh yes, you do.) Key to crafting their allure was the ability to place an

To Give Cancer a Deadly Fever, NIST Explores Better Nanoparticle Design

June 16, 2015

Heat may be the key to killing certain types of cancer, and new research from a team including National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) scientists

Double Vision: New NIST Technique Can See Nanoscale 'Tree' and Microscale 'Forest' Simultaneously

March 3, 2015

A close-up view of an individual tree won't tell you much about what's going on in the forest, or even what's going on in the tree's upper branches. The same

Computer simulations of two possible morphologies of a block copolymer film

NIST Offers Electronics Industry Two Ways to Snoop on Self-Organizing Molecules

October 22, 2014

A few short years ago, the idea of a practical manufacturing process based on getting molecules to organize themselves in useful nanoscale shapes seemed

NIST Scientists Improve Microscopic Batteries with Homebuilt Imaging Analysis

September 26, 2014

In a rare case of having their cake and eating it too, scientists from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and other institutions have

Lighten Up! New NIST Research Facility Gives Material Help to Automakers

August 26, 2014

Want to make more fuel-efficient cars and trucks? Build them out of lighter materials. Sounds easy, but it's not. Automakers have decades of experience with the

Lithium Sulfur: A Battery Revolution on the Cheap?

June 3, 2014

Whip together an industrial waste product and a bit of plastic and you might have the recipe for the next revolution in battery technology. Scientists from the

MML Researcher R. Joseph Kline Receives Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers

January 15, 2014

Material Measurement Laboratory researcher R. Joseph Kline was recently named among the 102 recipients of the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists

What's the Matter? Q-Glasses Could Be a New Class of Solids

August 6, 2013

There may be more kinds of stuff than we thought. A team of researchers has reported possible evidence for a new category of solids, things that are neither

Multiple views of NIST's photoelectrochemical hydrogen cell.

NIST Demonstrates Significant Improvement in the Performance of Solar-Powered Hydrogen Generation

May 14, 2013

Using a powerful combination of microanalytic techniques that simultaneously image photoelectric current and chemical reaction rates across a surface on a

Shaking Things Up: NIST Researchers Propose New Old Way to Purify Carbon Nanotubes

April 30, 2013

An old, somewhat passé, trick used to purify protein samples based on their affinity for water has found new fans at the National Institute of Standards and

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