News and Updates

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Ileana Pazos sits and smiles for a photo next to scientific equipment. She's holding tweezers next to the machine.

Spotlight: Research Chemist Ileana Pazos’ Radiant Role in Longer-Lasting, Safer Imported Foods

March 24, 2023

Fruits and vegetables brought in from outside the country first require health and foodborne pathogen inspections. NIST research chemist Ileana Pazos helps the

Black and white micrograph shows tiny white panels standing parallel to form small squares on a dark background.

Spotlight: Zebra-Striped Structures to Twist Neutrons and Extend Researchers’ Vision

November 22, 2022

What are these microscopic zebra-striped squares, and why did scientists painstakingly arrange more than 6 million of them on a silicon plate just half a

Research on the Rocks: Combining Neutrons and X-Ray Imaging, NIST Scientists Study Meteorites to Explore the Mystery of How Earth Acquired Its Water

November 3, 2022

Each year, hundreds of meteorites — rocky bodies left over from the formation of the solar system — bombard Earth, delivering minerals, metals and water to our

Prototype superconducting sensor is a square chip with lines running through it.

Spotlight: Looking Beyond the Standard Model to Explore Neutron Decay

April 12, 2022

This prototype NIST sensor may help solve some mysteries of the universe by looking beyond the Standard Model. The Standard Model is a long-standing theory that

Groundbreaking Technique Yields Important New Details on Silicon, Subatomic Particles and Possible ‘Fifth Force’

September 9, 2021

Using a groundbreaking new technique at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), an international collaboration led by NIST researchers has

Different colored spots of light form a circle on a black background.

Spotlight: A Giant Leap for Magnifying Materials With Neutron Beams

May 2, 2021

From the stars to the Lilliputian — a new camera lens using the power of reflection has the potential to transform neutron imaging. Wolter optics, named after

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

Spotlight: Radiometric Dating

February 14, 2020

Dating can be complicated. Our team uses this instrument — a live-timed anticoincidence counter — to figure the decay rate of an isotope, which we can then use

Six people stand in front of a tan building, cutting a blue ribbon

NIST Unveils New Laboratory Building for Improved National Radiation Measurements

September 24, 2019

GAITHERSBURG, Md. — The U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) held a ribbon-cutting ceremony yesterday to unveil a

Photonic Radiation Sensors Survive Huge Doses Undamaged

November 27, 2018

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have published landmark test results that suggest a promising class of sensors can be

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

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

Calibrating the Calibrator: The National Standard Neutron Source

January 17, 2017

Neutron detectors and sources play critical roles in national defense, homeland security, nuclear power plant control, radiation medicine, petroleum exploration

In Search of ‘Sterile’ Neutrinos

December 9, 2016

Lately, neutrinos – the tiny, nearly massless particles that many scientists study to better understand the fundamental workings of the universe – have been

Move Over, Lasers: Scientists Can Now Create Holograms from Neutrons, Too

October 20, 2016

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

Physicists measured something new in the radioactive decay of neutrons

June 14, 2016

A physics experiment performed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has enhanced scientists' understanding of how free neutrons decay

Neutron Microscope: Waiting for the Lens to Come

March 30, 2016

When the world's first workhorse neutron microscope – currently being designed and built by a collaboration including NIST's Physical Measurement Laboratory

On the Road to a Neutron Microscope: First Light for World-Class Neutron Imaging Facility

November 20, 2015

Neutrons, the charge-less constituents of atomic nuclei, are nifty imagers. Since the 1950s, scientists have been using these particles' eerie ability to non

NIST Calibrates Quartz Crystals for Fusion Device

September 29, 2015

Last spring, PML's x-ray calibration facilities were used in a pinch – a Z pinch, that is. The Sandia National Laboratories' Z Pulsed Power Facility, or "Z

Hydrogen Storage Formulation Patented

September 21, 2015

The prospect of a "hydrogen economy" – in which vehicles powered by fuel cells would travel the nation's roadways emitting nothing from their tailpipes but

New Shellfish Reference Material Will Help Monitor Oceans' Radioactive Contamination

August 4, 2015

A new reference material that will help laboratories accurately measure radioactive contamination in seawater is now available from the National Institute of

Not Schrödinger's Cat: NIST PET Phantoms Bring New Accuracy to Medical Scans

July 28, 2015

Teaming with a medical equipment company, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have demonstrated the first calibration

Hand holding a flexible organic material

NIST Shows Organic Solar Industry Something New Under the Sun

July 16, 2015

Hunting for the best material from which to build organic solar cells can be like seeking the proverbial haystack needle, but now scientists at the National

NIST Gets New Angle on X-Ray Measurements

March 9, 2015

Criminal justice, cosmology and computer manufacturing may not look to have much in common, but these and many other disparate fields all depend on sensitive

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