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Physics

News and Updates

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A Simple Retrofit Transforms Ordinary Electron Microscopes Into High-Speed Atom-Scale Cameras

February 24, 2020

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and their collaborators have developed a way to retrofit the transmission electron...

A Spin Wave Detective Story: NIST Researchers Verify Surprising Behavior in a 2D Magnet

February 18, 2020

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have discovered a surprising feature in two-dimensional (2D) magnets, a new class of...

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...

Opposite sides of a quartz crystal resonator

Universe in the Balance

February 12, 2020

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have found a way to link measurements made by a device integral to microchip...

STM image of electrons in two coupled quantum dots

What a Pair! Coupled Quantum Dots May Offer a New Way to Store Quantum Information

January 29, 2020

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and their colleagues have for the first time created and imaged a novel pair of quantum...

Design in dark and light blue with a circular pattern surrounded by a square.

Spotlight: Silicon-28 in Quantum Computers

January 11, 2020

Silicon, found everywhere from the brick in your fireplace to the sand between your toes at the beach, also forms the basis of microchips in conventional...

A man in safety glasses stands near a rack of equipment in a darkened lab.

Counting Photons Is Now Routine Enough to Need Standards

December 20, 2019

Since the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) built its first superconducting devices for counting photons (the smallest units of light) in...

NIST Study Suggests Universal Method for Measuring Light Power

December 20, 2019

Always on the lookout for better ways to measure all kinds of things, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have published a...

A New Playbook for Interference

December 17, 2019

Particles can sometimes act like waves, and photons (particles of light) are no exception. Just as waves create an interference pattern, like ripples on a pond...

Gray cylinder two inches in diameter, held in gloved fingers

Spotlight: Astro-Etalon

November 25, 2019

A small role can make an astronomical impact, as is the case for a tiny NIST-built piece of a new planet-hunting project from NASA and the National Science...

Winners of the 2019 Lab Venture Challenge in Boulder

November 20, 2019

On November 12-13, 2019, Venture Partners at CU Boulder hosted the 2019 Lab Venture Challenge. Think Shark Tank! Eleven entrepreneurs pitched their product to...

Square checkerboard with 32 squares on each side surrounded by sunbeam-like lines emanating out from around the board.

NIST’s Light-Sensing Camera May Help Detect Extraterrestrial Life, Dark Matter

November 19, 2019

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have made one of the highest-performance cameras ever composed of sensors that count...

A woman and a man stand in front of scientific equipment, including a large green tank.

Spotlight: Gillian Nave and Jacob Ward

November 18, 2019

STEM is STELLAR! In November 2019, NIST’s Gillian Nave and Jacob Ward brought celebrations of Mercury’s transit (the point where Mercury passes between the...

woman in a blue dress and white sweater stands next to an electron microscope

Spotlight: June Lau

November 18, 2019

Closing in on a clear picture: NIST's June Lau, in collaboration with Brookhaven National Lab and Euclid Techlabs, is giving us a freeze-frame look at the...

What a Switch! NIST-Led Team Develops Tiny Low-Energy Device to Rapidly Reroute Light in Computer Chips

November 14, 2019

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and their colleagues have developed an optical switch that routes light from one...

SBIR funds internationally marketable quality audit instrument

November 1, 2019

En’Urga Inc., an advanced diagnostic equipment company, recently found success with a Small Business Innovation Research award from the National Institute of...

A twist and a spin: harnessing two quantum properties transforms a neutron beam into a powerful probe of material structure

October 29, 2019

By cleverly manipulating two properties of a neutron beam, NIST scientists and their collaborators have created a powerful probe of materials that have complex...

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