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Metrology

Optical / photometry / laser metrology

News and Updates

Blog Posts

Ryan Falkenstein-Smith and Amy Mensch, both wearing lab coats and gloves, stand in the lab next to a black camera-like device on a table.

The Sound of Soot: How a Strange Noise Can Keep Us Safer From Fires

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NIST researchers Yoshi Ohno and Jane Li demonstrate different types of lighting in their lab on NIST’s campus in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

The Eye of the Beholder: How Lighting Affects Our Color Perception

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flat map of world. Gray continents. Blue and green colors for oceans.

Monitoring the Oceans’ Color for Clues to Climate Change

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Projects and Programs

Absolute cryogenic infrared radiometry at the LBIR facility

Ongoing
The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), and subsequently the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO) and the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), have motivated NIST's work developing calibration methods and standards for space-based sensors used in missile
The NIST wind tunnel

Air Speed Metrology

Ongoing
NIST's wind tunnel has two interchangeable test sections. (See Fig. 1) The upper test section has a uniform cross section; the lower test section has a contracted zone in its center to achieve higher velocities. Upper test section: 2.1 m high × 1.5 m wide × 12 m long; speeds to: 45 m/s (100 mi/hour)
Aperture measurement with AMM

Aperture area measurements

Ongoing
Aperture area measurements are performed at NIST’s aperture area measurement facility, which combines a precise interferometric motion stage with high-resolution optical microscopy. This non-contact method is especially well suited for the measurement of defining apertures with knife edges that are

Publications

Single-photon Sources and Detectors Dictionary

Author(s)
Joshua Bienfang, Thomas Gerrits, Paulina Kuo, Alan Migdall, Sergey Polyakov, Oliver Slattery
The intention of this dictionary is to define relevant terms and metrics used in the characterization of single-photon detectors and sources with the goal to

Disseminable single-photon source for quantum radiometry

Author(s)
Hristina Georgieva, Thomas Gerrits, Lijun Ma, Riley Dawkins, Marco Lopez, Oliver Slattery, Sven Rodt, Stephan Reitzenstein, Alan Migdall, Stefan Kueck
We present a disseminable single-photon source based on an InGaAs quantum dot in a micro-mesa. This source achieves a maximum photon flux of 2.8 million photons

Software

JB95 Spectral fitting program

A graphical user interface program, JB95, based on a Windows 95 © API platform has been written in the C programming language to aid in the analysis of complex

Tools and Instruments

Awards

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