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Physics

News and Updates

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Spotlight: Near-Perfect Mirror Surfaces for Reflecting Mid-Infrared Light Better

December 6, 2023

Mirror, mirror in the chamber, how can we get light to reflect from you better?

Do the Bump: NIST Scientists Perfect Miniaturized Technique to Generate Precise Wavelengths of Visible Laser Light

November 28, 2023

In research, sometimes the bumpy path proves to be the best one. By creating tiny, periodic bumps in a miniature racetrack for light, researchers at the

New Frequency Comb Can Identify Molecules in 20-Nanosecond Snapshots

October 30, 2023

Laser-based system now has the ability to capture moment-to-moment details of high-speed processes such as hypersonic propulsion and protein folding.

Partially Unraveling an Entangled Mystery

October 26, 2023

Entanglement—a uniquely quantum phenomenon that intimately links the fate of subatomic particles even if they reside on opposite sides of the galaxy—is a key

Twisted Science: NIST Researchers Find a New Quantum Ruler to Explore Exotic Matter

October 5, 2023

A single-atom-thick sheet of carbon known as graphene has remarkable properties on its own, but things can get even more interesting when you stack up multiple

NIST Researchers Develop a Breakthrough COVID-19 Detection Technology

October 2, 2023

“Only connect” is the most famous line in the British novelist E. M. Forster’s writings. Forster was urging the readers of his book Howard’s End to make

Illustration of a pair of tweezers surrounding a beam of light that illuminates a line of atoms, each with an analog clock face in the center and an up and down arrow pointing through it.

New Spin-Squeezing Techniques Let Atoms Work Together for Better Quantum Measurements

September 25, 2023

Opening new possibilities for quantum sensors, atomic clocks and tests of fundamental physics, JILA researchers have developed new ways of “entangling” or

Imaging the Elusive Skyrmion

September 25, 2023

Scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) with colleagues elsewhere have employed neutron imaging and a reconstruction algorithm

NIST chip containing a single-photon detector made of superconducting nanowires. Four chips like this were used in the experiment that entangled three photons.

Unity in the Photon Community

September 12, 2023

The creation and detection of single photons (the smallest units of light) has grown in a few decades from an experimental laboratory pursuit to an important

NIST Seeks Input on Implementation of National Standards Strategy for Critical and Emerging Technology

September 7, 2023

The strategy promotes technologically sound standards that help American industry compete internationally on a level playing field.

Four researchers pose standing in a lab, smiling and wearing safety glasses, surrouded by wires and other electronics.

NIST Demonstrates a New ‘Primary Standard’ for Measuring Ultralow Pressures

August 10, 2023

Chip manufacturing, gravitational wave detectors and quantum computers could all benefit from better ways to measure a vacuum.

A black and white image of a man in a gray suit standing next to a complex machine with a profusion of tubes, wires and lights.

Former NIST Director Lewis Branscomb Connected the Curiosity of Scientists With the Needs of the Nation

July 26, 2023

Described as "one of the fathers of publicly funded research in the U.S.,” Branscomb died in May at 96 years old.

Two people wearing coveralls in a "clean room" lab look up at a disk-shaped object that one of them is holding.

Spotlight: Detecting the Inner Workings and Origins of Our Universe With NIST Researcher Tammy Lucas

July 20, 2023

NIST researcher Tammy Lucas is building tools to help astronomers and cosmologists look back in time to the earliest moments of our universe — and see what we

NIST researcher Jared Strait with a prototype hand-held KDFR

MEASURING UP: Kibble Dynamic Force Reference

July 18, 2023

Static force, such as the weight of a person standing motionless on a bathroom scale or the force that an office full of equipment exerts on a high-rise floor

New NIST Measurements Aim to Advance and Validate Portable MRI Technology

July 17, 2023

A new wave of smaller, less expensive MRI systems promises to expand the delivery of health care and the capabilities of medicine.

white matter mimic in the bottom half of the artificial cranium

Lessons from an Experimental Brain Phantom

July 12, 2023

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and colleagues have developed a novel, anatomically accurate reference model of the

Sam Oberdick and Gary Zabow pose for a picture, standing together with lab equipment in the background.

Spotlight: The Creative Minds Working Behind the Scenes on Agents of MRI Contrast

July 7, 2023

You might not recognize these two faces from such NIST social media hits as “microprinting with candy” and “molds for microparticles,” but they were behind that

Illustrated molecules, represented by red spheres and blue spheres connected by a white cylinder, fill a dark blue field. Alongside the molecules are electrons, represented by light blue spheres with directional arrows pointing through them.

Why Does Matter Exist? Roundness of Electrons May Hold Clues

July 6, 2023

JILA physicists make record-breaking measurement of a key electron property.

New NIST Licensing Opportunity Teems with Potential Applications

July 5, 2023

Max Planck, one of the Twentieth Century’s most eminent physicists, observed, "An experiment is a question that science poses to Nature, and a measurement is

NIST-Designed Photonic Chip Transforms a Single Beam of Light Into Multiple Beams, Each With a Panoply of Different Properties

June 30, 2023

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have devised a photonic circuit on a chip that transforms a single incoming beam of