Physical Measurement Laboratory

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

SI Redefinition

NIST is producing a series of special reports on the worldwide consensus plan to redefine four of the seven basic units of measurement in the International System of Units in terms of invariants of nature.

Explore these stories, as they become available, on the SI Redefinition Portal.

News and Updates

Fly Me (Partway) to the Moon

November 19, 2019

Last week, scientists from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the National Aeronautics and Space

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

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

The Half of It: Argentinian Metrologist Builds NIST-Inspired ‘Half-Angle’ Measurement System

October 30, 2019

When Jorge Campbell, an engineer from Argentina’s National Institute of Industrial Technology (INTI), visited the

Events

5619: Internal Auditing Best Practices

Thu, Feb 25 2021

This 2 hour webinar will consider internal auditing techniques and best practices that are used by a metrology

5618: Conducting an Effective Management Review

Thu, Feb 11 2021

This 2-hour webinar introduces the Laboratory Management Review process, an important tool to foster communication

5621: Calibration Certificate Evaluation

Thu, Jan 28 2021

This 2-hour webinar will introduce concepts necessary to successfully implement ISO/IEC 17025:2017 compliant calibration

5616: Internal Auditing Best Practices

Thu, Oct 29 2020

This 2 hour webinar will consider internal auditing techniques and best practices that are used by a metrology

Industry Impacts

Fare Standards for Rideshare Services

To calculate fares, app-based ride services such as Lyft and Uber don’t use traditional taxi meters, but instead combine data from GPS and cellular networks to

Illustrative subset of parameterized shapes available for nanoscale photonic, electronic, mechanic, fluidic, and other applications.

Nanolithography Design Tools

Accurate production of nanoscale features on semiconductor chips is essential to their performance, but typical design tools cater to the dominance of straight

Image of a radiation pressure power meter

High-Power Lasers for Manufacturing

Measuring the intensity of high-power lasers used by manufacturers for precision cutting and welding can be difficult due to large instrumentation challenges