A summary of the Planck constant measurements using a watt balance with a superconducting solenoid at NIST

Published

February 5, 2015

Author(s)

Stephan Schlamminger, Richard L. Steiner, Darine El Haddad, David B. Newell, Frank C. Seifert, Leon S. Chao, Ruimin Liu, Edwin R. Williams

Abstract

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have been using a watt balance, NIST-3, to measure the Planck constant h for over ten years. Two recently published values disagree by more than one standard deviation. The motivation for the present manuscript is twofold. First, we correct the latest published number to take into account a recently discovered systematic error in mass dissemination at the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM). Second, we provide guidance on how to combine the two numbers into one final result. In order to adequately reflect the discrepancy, an additional systematic uncertainty must be added to the published error budgets. The final value of h measured with NIST-3 is h = 6.626 069 36(37) x 10^-34 Js. This result is 77(57) x 10^-9 fractionally higher than h_90. Here, h_90 is the conventional value of the Planck constant given by h_90~ 4 /(KJn^2 RKn), where KJn and RKn denote the conventional values of the Josephson and von Klitzing constants, respectively.

Citation

Metrologia

Volume

52

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1088/0026-1394/52/2/L5

Keywords

watt balance, electronic kilogram, Planck constant

Citation

Schlamminger, S. , Steiner, R. , El, D. , Newell, D. , Seifert, F. , Chao, L. , Liu, R. and Williams, E. (2015), A summary of the Planck constant measurements using a watt balance with a superconducting solenoid at NIST, Metrologia, [online], https://doi.org/10.1088/0026-1394/52/2/L5 (Accessed October 16, 2025)