Nuclear physics

News and Updates

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

Impeding the Impedance: Research Reveals How to Design a Better Next-Generation Lithium-Ion Battery

November 16, 2021

The newest generation of lithium-ion batteries now under development promises a revolution in powering cell phones, electric vehicles, laptops and myriad other

Projects and Programs

Fundamental Physics: Search for Time Reversal Violation in Polarized Neutron Decay (emiT)

Completed

The "emiT" experiment searched for time-reversal symmetry violation term in neutron beta decay. It did so by measuring electron-proton coincidence events from

Security (Archive): Neutron Detector Replacement Program

Completed

The Department of Homeland Security/Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DHS/DNDO) is pursuing a course to transform 3He alternative technologies into integrated

Fundamental Physics: Experiments with a Precision Neutron Polarimeter

Ongoing

The Neutron Spin Rotation (NSR) collaboration has developed a neutron spin polarimeter that has allowed the precise measurement of spin rotations at a level of

Fundamental Physics: Precision Measurement of the Branching Ratio and Energy Spectrum of Radiative Neutron Decay

Completed

Neutron beta-decay is typically considered as a three-body process, but it is always accompanied by inner-bremsstrahlung soft photons, n → e− + p + νe + γ. This

Publications

Highlights of Neutronics Analyses for the Pre-conceptual NIST Neutron Source Design

November 13, 2022

Author(s)

Osman Celikten, Dagistan Sahin, Abdullah Weiss

A Preliminary Thermal-hydraulics Analysis for the NIST Neutron Source

November 13, 2022

Author(s)

Idan Baroukh, Anil Gurgen, Joy Shen, Abdullah Weiss

Primary standardization of 212Pb activity by liquid scintillation counting

September 22, 2022

Author(s)

Denis E. Bergeron, Jeffrey T. Cessna, Ryan P. Fitzgerald, Lizbeth Laureano-Perez, Leticia Pibida, Brian E. Zimmerman

An activity standard for 212Pb in equilibrium with its progeny was realized, based on triple-to-double coincidence ratio (TDCR) liquid scintillation (LS)

Search for electron-neutrino transitions to sterile states in the BEST experiment

June 9, 2022

Author(s)

Jeffrey S. Nico, V. Barinov, S.N. Danshin, V.N. Gavrin, V.V. Gorbachev, D.S. Gorbunov, T.V. Ibragimova, Yu.P. Kozlova, L.V. Kravchuk, V.V. Kuzminov, B.K. Lubsandorzhiev, Yu.M. Malyshkin, I.N. Mirmov, A.A. Shikhin, E.P. Veretenkin, B.T. Cleveland, H. Ejiri, S.R. Elliott, I. Kim, R. Massarczyk, D. Frekers, W.C. Haxton, V.A. Matveev, G.V. Trubnikov, A.L. Petelin, V.A. Tarasov, A.I. Zvir, R.G.H. Robertson, D. Sinclair, J.F. Wilkerson

The Baksan Experiment on Sterile Transitions (BEST) probes the gallium anomaly and its possible connections to oscillations between active and sterile neutrinos

Tools and Instruments

Positron Annihilation Lifetime Spectrometer

Positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy uses positrons to probe material defects/voids/free volume at the sub-nm scale. The general working principle is

Material Analysis Using Neutron Depth Profiling

Light elements such as helium, lithium, boron, and nitrogen are essential constituents in materials that enable energy technologies; lithium ion batteries