An official website of the United States government
Here’s how you know
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock (
) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.
Recent experiments have confirmed* that a technique developed several years ago at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) can enable optical
Thanks to precision calibration measurements recently performed at NIST, satellites may soon be looking at sunlight with new and improved vision. On July 22
Crash-test dummies, yarn-spinning machines and steel girders in bridges. What do they have in common? Look inside them all and you find transducers, devices
Airline passengers have already said bon voyage to the controversial backscatter x-ray security scanners, pulled from U.S. airports in 2013 over concerns about
To support the fair sale of gaseous hydrogen as a vehicle fuel, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed a
Particles of soot floating through the air and comets hurtling through space have at least one thing in common: 0.36. That, reports a research group at the
The theme of this year's World Metrology Day, " Measurements and the Global Energy Challenge," speaks to one of the defining issues of our time. One that is as
When the semiconductor industry received the eagerly awaited annual update of the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) [1] at the end of
Researchers from the NIST Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology (CNST) have observed electromagnetically induced transparency at room temperature and
PML researchers have developed a novel method of fabricating graphene-based microdevices that may hasten the arrival of a new generation of standards for
Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have rejuvenated a technique for finding planets near distant stars.* New measurements
Very soon, the International System of Units (SI) may be revised to define the unit of mass in terms of a fixed value of the Planck constant, h. That move would
PML researchers have devised an idea for determining the three-dimensional shape of features as small as 10 nanometers wide. The model-based method compares
A PML team is hitting the road with a fine-tooth comb. Scientists in the Quantum Electronics and Photonics Division have devised a portable optical frequency
Commentary by Mark Esser. Every year, we hear scattered stories of inaccurate measures. Gas pumps, grocery scales, grocery scanners, incorrectly labeled
A team of PML scientists and collaborators* has achieved a five-fold reduction in the dominant uncertainty in an experiment that measured the mean lifetime of
It might seem that when the world agrees on a new definition of the kilogram based on a fixed value of a physical constant, as is expected soon, no one will
Piezoelectrics—materials that can change mechanical stress to electricity and back again—are everywhere in modern life. Computer hard drives. Loud speakers
Tiny, self-powered sensors that can be embedded in bridge structures and networked wirelessly to continuously monitor the structure's health. Little fly-by-wire
Laser trackers are state-of-the-art measuring machines that are capable of measuring the dimensions of large objects (up to approximately 120 meters in length)
After two years of difficult and meticulous work examining, refurbishing, and testing the aging workhorse watt balance called NIST-3, PML researchers have used
In 2009, a violent rupture of a 50-foot pressure vessel used to produce synthetic crystals at the NDK Crystal facility in Belvidere, Illinois fatally injured a
Americans rely on many measurements of mass and volume in their daily lives, from weighing broccoli at the grocery store to putting gas in the family car. In
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is advertising available grants in a pair of programs aimed at undergraduate students and middle
Using a novel realization of a "phonon laser," scientists at PML and the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI) have observed and learned to control a process called