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Materials

Plastics, carbon nanotubes, high-strength alloys, artificial bone and joint replacements are just some of the emerging materials for which NIST develops testbeds, defines benchmarks, and develops formability measurements and models.

Image of multilayered nanomagnetic device with gold electrodes on a silicon surface, showing magnetization in nanomagnetic layer and electron spins on other layers.

Zero Field Switching (ZFS) Effect in a Nanomagnetic Device
Saving Money by Breaking Bank - NISTory Thumbnail

NISTory video: Saving Money by Breaking the Bank
LED lights are shown at top emitting heat. The blue light goes down to a TV screen. The green and red light goes through nanoplatelets before going to the TV screen

Nanoplatelets Could Make TVs More Energy Efficient

Materials by Design

Many different rectangular pieces of webby material are all wrapped up in a big ball. The pieces are each colored differently so that you can tell them apart in the bunch. These are meant to represent a graphene melt.
Credit: Xia-Wenjie, Ridvan Kahraman/North Dakota State University

Every “thing” is made of materials — roads, engines and medical devices, to name just a few examples. For centuries, inventing and developing new materials for industrial applications took long amounts of time and tremendous amounts of trial and error. Speeding up that process could save time and money and spur a great deal of innovation across many sectors of the economy. Read about how NIST's Materials Genome Initiative plans to do just that.

News and Updates

Industry Impacts

artsy photo of a concrete wall at Bronx Comunity College

Cement

Cement is the core ingredient in concrete, the most widely used building material in the world. It plays an integral role in infrastructure such as buildings
Researchers at the NIST Center Lightweighting Lab

Lightweight Materials for Automobiles

Automotive companies are increasingly using lightweight materials to improve vehicle fuel economy. However, incorporating those materials into new vehicles is
Scientist puts material down below a tube. Background: computer screen

Helmet Materials for Head Health

Athletes, warfighters and even children riding their bikes all can benefit from better protective gear to prevent head injuries. The Head Health Challenge

Projects and Programs

Micro-rheometry

Our goal is to develop and promote the adoption of small-volume rheological methods for complex fluids including bio-fluids, suspensions and polymers, where

Publications

Software

MicroChar

MicroChar

(Return to Cement Hydration and Degradation Modeling Software) Accurate quantitative data on cement and clinker microstructure images can prove valuable for

HolograFREE

An electron hologram is a fringe modulated image containing the amplitude and phase information of an electron transparent object. The HolograFREE routines

Tools and Instruments

Picture of the sample area of the NIST X-ray Adsorbtion Fine Structure instrument, with NIST scientist Bruce Ravel, located at the National Synchrotron Light Source.

X-ray Absorption Fine Structure (XAFS)

The XAFS station uses a tunable, monochromatic, and moderately high energy X-ray beam (4.5 keV to 23.5 keV) for X-ray absorption spectroscopy measurements. The

Awards

Sam Low Recognized by ASTM

The award was given to Sam to recognize his work with ISO and with the Consultative Committee on Mass and Relate Quantities – Working Group...

Vincent Hackley Honored by ASTM

The award was presented by the E56 Chairwoman, Debbie Kaiser (NIST Office of Data and Informatics), in Houston, Texas on November 4, 2019 at...

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