U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

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.

Standards

Reference instruments

News and Updates

Events

Blog Posts

Title card reads "A Scientific Christmas Tale" with the NIST logo in a wreath and flashing holiday lights.

A Scientific Christmas Tale

Read more
An antique clock showing a few minutes before 12 is topped with a party hat, and colorful streamers hang in the background.

Auld Lang ‘Time’: One of the Country’s Timekeepers Makes Sure We Ring in The New Year at Just the Right Second

Read more
A researcher wearing safety glasses reaches into a box of circuitry and other equipment, which emits a green glow.

Think You Know What a Second Is? It Will Likely Change in the Next Decade.

Read more

Projects and Programs

Illustration of satellite sensing of sunlight reflected by buildings, roads, water and trees to assess radiative warming of the earth.

Climate Science

Ongoing
This program encompasses multifaceted efforts to advance the metrology of climate science. Projects include: development of ultra-high accuracy optical standards and technologies to determine greenhouse gases (GHGs) concentrations, atmospheric lifetimes, and aerosol radiative forcing development of
A chart showing the various sectors served by the Laser Power & Energy Meter calibrations project as of 2025

Laser Power and Energy Meter Calibrations

Ongoing
We serve Industry, DoD, and research institutions by calibrating instruments used to measure the power or energy emitted by a laser, or single photon source. From Single Photons to Kilowatts, Longwave Infrared to Deep Ultraviolet, Free-space and Fiber, we can calibrate your instruments. The chart to

Material Qualification

Ongoing
Objective To develop, utilize, and analyze methods of characterizing the precursor materials in additive manufacturing in both virgin and recycled states with the goal of advancing measurement science to benefit the AM community. The components of principal interest will include the rheological

Publications

Feature Description for Assessing Autonomous Vehicle Performance

Author(s)
Edward Griffor, Hadhoum Hajjaj, Thoshitha Gamage, Thomas Roth, Wenqi Guo
This technical report presents a structured methodology for describing and assessing auto-mated vehicle (AV) features, with a focus on ensuring consistent and

Single-cryostat integration of the quantum anomalous Hall and Josephson effects

Author(s)
Jason Underwood, Linsey Rodenbach, Ngoc Thanh Mai Tran, Alireza Panna, Zachary Barcikowski, Molly Andersen, Peng Zhang, Lixuan Tai, Randolph Elmquist, Dean Jarrett, David Goldhaber-Gordon, David Newell, Albert Rigosi
By directly integrating a quantum anomalous Hall resistor (QAHR) and a programmable Josephson voltage standard (PJVS) into a single cryostat, we have

Tools and Instruments

Reference Ballistic Chronograph Figure 1

Reference Ballistic Chronograph

The NIST-developed reference ballistic chronograph (RBC) provides repeatable measurements of the speed of a bullet that will impact a test article, such as
Large Aperture Scanner

Large Aperture Scanner

The Large Aperture Scanner (LAS) scans a radar transceiver over a 5 meter by 20 meter aperture. Image reconstruction techniques enable a three-dimensional
Was this page helpful?