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.
Patent Description This invention is a motion sensor, and the unique fabrication process required to build the sensor, that uses the strong sensitivity of plasmonic modes to geometrical parameters (e.g. gap size). The measurement technique is experimentally validated by detecting thermal motion of a
Patent Description This invention is a light source that provides high-power (1W to 5W), narrow line-width (<1 nm), quasi-continuous wave (80 MHz) light that can be tuned in wavelength from 340 nm to 2300 nm. See figure below. The light source is fully automated, solid state, and fits on a
Patent Description The massively parallel reliability (MPR) system is a measurement platform where thousands of semiconductor devices are tested for long term reliability. The system is designed to perform some of the standard reliability tests for certain degradation mechanisms in semiconductor
Greg Rieker
,
Ian Coddington
,
Nathan R Newbury
,
Kuldeep Prasad
and
Anna Karion
Patent Description The current practice for detecting methane leaks is still in its infancy. There are several environmental regulations that have driven the development of Forward-looking Infrared (FLIR) cameras, thermographic cameras that senses infrared radiation, for detection of Volatile
This invention is an electrical-substitution radiometer (ESR) — a thermal detector for optical and infrared radiation — based on a novel configuration of arrays of vertically aligned carbon nanotubes.
Raymond Simmonds
,
Katarina Cicak
,
Cindy Regal
and
Thomas Purdy
Patent Description Mechanical resonators are widely used in wireless receivers, bio sensors, and timing and frequency control. Besides industry, in recent years in academia there is also considerable interest for ultrahigh precision sensing and fundamental science. A mechanical resonator with the
Kin (Charles) Cheung
,
Jason Ryan
and
Jason Campbell
Patent Description The new NIST detector senses very small phase shifts in a highly balanced microwave bridge. An electric field optimized microwave probe, in close proximity to a sample, serves to perturb the degree of bridge balance due to a change in effective dielectric constant of the sample
Patent Description This invention provides for a new and useful metrology to enable counterfeit detection system capable of uniquely marking items by encoding information in their physical structure at the nanoscale. The system depends on rapidly encoding information in the physical structure of an
NIST scientists have devised a radically new method of determining laser power by measuring the radiation pressure exerted by a laser beam on a reflective surface.
NMR endures as one of the most powerful analytical tools for detecting chemical species and elucidating molecular structure. Zero-to-ultralow-field NMR spectroscopy is a new, potentially portable and cost-effective modality to determine the molecular structure and properties of microfluidic chemical samples.
This technology is a device that integrates a microfluidic channel and an alkali vapor cell on a microchip-like platform. In conjunction with a near resonant laser beam, the alkali vapor cell forms the basis for an atomic magnetometer, competing with (or even exceeding) the sensitivity of magnetometers based on SQUIDs.
Gyroscopes sense rotation. In combination with magnetometers, gyroscopes are used many applications. The NIST invention enables multitasking measurement capabilities and is the first to demonstrate simultaneous measurement of rotation, rotation angle and acceleration with a single source of atoms.
Measurement of faint magnetic fields is critical to many applications, including medical diagnostics, but conventional technologies are often large, complex and expensive. NIST’s chip-scale atomic magnetometer is highly compact and readily fabricated using familiar semiconductor techniques.