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Materials

News and Updates

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Transforming Welding with Comprehensive NIST Metrology

February 2, 2016

Welding has been around, in some form, for centuries. Today it enables a large percentage of the U.S. economy,* thanks to its role in the creation of a diverse...

Thinking Outside the Cuvette: To Measure Dimensions of Skinny Glass Container, PML Scientists Get Creative

February 1, 2016

Let's say you're a biotechnologist working to develop new medicines or a better test for forensic analysis. You might find yourself frequently using absorbance...

Quantum Information Transfer: From Microwaves to Motion to Light

January 28, 2016

When a long-awaited quantum information network finally arrives, in whatever form, it will incorporate two essential technologies: a method of generating and...

Colorized micrograph of a NIST single-photon detector

Less Jitter, More Bits: New Material for Detecting Photons Captures More Quantum Information

January 5, 2016

Detecting individual particles of light just got a bit more precise—by 74 picoseconds to be exact—thanks to advances in materials by National Institute of...

Electron micrograph of surface-directed nanochannels formed on surface of indium phosphide.

Nanoworld "Snow Blowers" Carve Straight Channels in Semiconductor Surfaces

December 28, 2015

In the nanoworld, tiny particles of gold can operate like snow blowers, churning through surface layers of an important class of semiconductors to dig...

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...

Scientist puts material down below a tube. Background: computer screen

NFL, Under Armour, GE & National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Announce Five Winners of Head Health Challenge III

December 15, 2015

NEW YORK – The National Football League (NFL), Under Armour (NYSE:UA), GE (NYSE: GE), and the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and...

NIST Takes (Some of) the Stress Out of Engineering New Materials

November 13, 2015

Stress: What does it feel like to you? Maybe like pressure from multiple directions, trying to push and pull and twist you all at once? If so, you've described...

NIST and Intel Get Critical (Dimensions) with X-rays

October 20, 2015

Researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Intel reported success using an X-ray scattering technique to accurately measure...

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...

NIST Puts the Twist on Neutrons — Because It Takes One to Know One

September 23, 2015

A team of scientists working at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has found a way to put a twist on a beam of neutrons—a development...

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...

GaN Nanowires: Knowing Which End Is Up

September 21, 2015

Many people who have heard of gallium nitride (GaN) know it as the semiconductor used in bright light-emitting diodes for flashlights and energy-efficient light...

NIST Posts 5-Year Strategic Plan for Measurement Research and Services in Materials, Chemical and Biological Sciences

August 13, 2015

Scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have mapped out a plan for the NIST Material Measurement Laboratory, the unit...

NIST Calculates High Cost of Hydrogen Pipelines, Shows How to Reduce It

July 20, 2015

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has put firm numbers on the high costs of installing pipelines to transport hydrogen fuel—and also...

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...

The Incredible Shrinking ESR Machine

July 14, 2015

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have come up with a way to shrink a research instrument generally associated with large...

carbon nanotubes embedded in a polymer composite

NIST 'How-To' Website Documents Procedures for Nano-EHS Research and Testing

June 30, 2015

As engineered nanomaterials increasingly find their way into commercial products, researchers who study the potential environmental or health impacts of those...

NIST Group Maps Distribution of Carbon Nanotubes in Composite Materials

June 29, 2015

Despite their small size and simple structure, carbon nanotubes—essentially sheets of graphene rolled up into straws—have all sorts of potentially useful...

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...

NIST's 'Nano-Raspberries' Could Bear Fruit in Fuel Cells

June 9, 2015

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed a fast, simple process for making platinum "nano-raspberries"...

International Symposium on Forensic Science Error Management Announces Brandon Mayfield and Steven Wax as Keynote Speakers