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Projects/Programs

Displaying 1 - 25 of 44

Aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy

Ongoing
As devices continue to become smaller, more complex, and more highly integrated, atomic scale measurements of their structure, chemistry, strain, and electric field are increasingly crucial for device design, reliability, and optimization. The aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron

Advanced Metering in Smart Distribution Grids

Completed
Objective: To advance measurement science for the performance of smart meters and associated metering standards and test procedures that will enable accurate and fair electricity metering needed for the smart grid, by 2016. What is the new technical idea? This project will develop test procedures

Asynchronous Cooperative Linear Dispersion Coding

Completed
The space–time block coding (STBC) techniques provide full spatial diversity in the context of collocated multiple-input–multiple-output (MIMO) systems, requiring reliable wireless communications at high rates. However, it may not always be practical to accommodate multiple antennas at the mobile

Bioelectronic Sensors for Tissue/Organ-on-a-Chip Systems

Ongoing
We apply our expertise in micro/nanofabrication, electrokinetics and cell-based assays to develop bioelectronic sensors in microfluidic platforms. We are working on a platform that entraps cells for electrochemical monitoring in an environment that has mechanical properties more similar to those

Collaborative Microgrid for Smart Buildings

Completed
Currently, the idea of designing collaborative smart buildings is becoming a real challenge. Indeed, the emergence of smart grids and the growing use of smart household appliances is the main driving force behind the use of demand side management. This would require developing an efficient control

Cooperative Diversity Routing and Transmission for Wireless Sensor Networks

Completed
In order to address the challenges of cooperation, PHY layer cooperation schemes were proposed and, to a limited extent, medium access control (MAC) layer schemes. On the network layer, the network coding techniques can be viewed as a form of cooperation as well. To the best of our knowledge, there

Cooperative vs Non-Cooperative Diversity in Space, Time and Frequency

Completed
Broadband communication plays an increasingly important role in meeting the growing demand for high-speed multimedia transmissions in our daily lives. However, when the bandwidth of a signal exceeds the coherent bandwidth of the wireless channel, the small-scale fading imposed on the signal becomes

Detector Readout Project

Ongoing
NIST’s Quantum Sensors Division develops highly sensitive cryogenic sensors, for example transition-edge sensors (TESs) and kinetic inductance detectors (KIDs), to enable precision measurements in a large range of scientific applications. The successful implementation of these novel sensor

Dynamic EUV Imaging and Spectroscopy for Microelectronics

Ongoing
Collaborations with industry leaders have led us to develop new measurement techniques to improve our understanding thermal transport, spin transport, and nanoscopic (and interfacial) material properties in active device structures. Such capability requires the ability to measure these properties at

Earth Energy Budget

Ongoing
The Earth Energy Balance is a fundamental climate measurement that has been monitored from space for over 40 years. Microfabricated, absolutely calibrated bolometers with vertically-aligned carbon nanotubes that are developed by this project provide a more accurate and more compact method for

Electroacoustic Wave-Based Flow Sensors

Ongoing
As part of our NIST-on-a-Chip efforts, we are developing strategies to measure local flow in microfluidic systems. This project will develop label-free flow sensors using surface acoustic waves embedded in microfluidic devices. In this approach, an electromechanical transducer is placed on a

Fiber Sources and Applications Background Information

Ongoing
NIST has been a world leader in lasers since the technology's development in the early 1960s, a tradition continued when NIST scientist John L. Hall shared the 2005 Nobel Prize in physics for his part in the invention of the optical frequency comb. The output of a comb is a brief broadband pulse

FOREST

Ongoing
The goals of the research are to: Provide a testbed (Forested Optical Reference for Evaluating Sensor Technology, FOREST) for ecophysiological and optical sensors with well-established reference points Investigate ecosystem phenomenology that will allow for better estimates of carbon flux Improve

Hierarchical Materials

Ongoing
The STG develops the methods and metrology that will lead to the understanding of the structure-property relationships of hierarchical composites in real medical PPE or protective applications, which heretofore has been lacking. This work establishes in situ monitoring of advanced manufacturing

High Amplification Laser-pressure Optic (HALO)

Ongoing
We have assembled a high-accuracy laser power meter based on radiation pressure with multiple reflections of the laser on the sensing mirror. A custom electrostatic force balance supports a high-reflectivity sensing mirror upon which a high-power continuous wave laser beam is incident at ~ 45

High-Power Laser Applications

Ongoing
Measurement challenges Traditional measurements of laser power or energy involve absorbing the laser light and measuring the resulting temperature increase of the absorber. However, as the power and total energy delivered by these lasers increases, thermal management, absorber size, and response

Kinetic Inductance Spectrophotometry

Ongoing
Within this application space, the transition-edge sensor (TES) microcalorimeter is the most mature technology, with demonstrated x-ray energy resolving capabilities of better than a part per thousand. Current TES readout techniques require the use of superconducting quantum interference device

Long Wavelength Sensors and Applications

Ongoing
Our project designs and micro-fabricates custom devices that achieve sensitivity at fundamental limits and are based on the principles of superconductivity. We often work in large collaborations to apply these devices to challenging measurements of high scientific interest, such as those which

Magnetic Random Access Memory

Ongoing
Focus areas include (1) the fundamental understanding of the interactions between spin and magnetic materials and materials with large spin-orbit scattering; (2) the nonlinear dynamics of both individual and interacting nanoscale magnetic systems; and (3) the role of thermal noise in nanomagnetic

Micro- and Nanoelectromechanical Systems

Completed
MEMS/NEMS are enabling technologies that bring new functionalities with the potential to radically transform markets ranging from consumer products to national defense. The meteoric rise of the smartphone is an excellent example, in which MEMS accelerometers, gyroscopes, microphones, displays, and

Microcalorimeter Spectrometers for X-ray and Gamma-ray Spectroscopy

Ongoing
The Quantum Calorimeters Project in the Quantum Sensors Group develops and applies sensors that detect the energy of single photons or particles. For example, Transition-Edge Sensors (TESs) are able to measure the energy of single x-ray and gamma-ray photons with a precision better than one part per

Optical and Microwave Spectroscopy of Microelectronic Systems

Ongoing
Collaborations with industry leaders have led to new understanding of magnetic damping in advanced materials and replication of our magnetic metrology tools. We investigate fundamental aspects of spin transfer in materials and structures that offer improved performance in future devices such as