Mass metrology

News and Updates

Spotlight: Edward Garboczi and Ann Chiaramonti Debay Analyzed 14,000 Moon Dust Particles

February 27, 2025

Having such precise models of lunar dust will enable NASA and private space exploration companies to create more accurate simulations of the Moon’s surface.

NIST OWM and KEBS: Building Metrology Capacity for the RMOs

January 7, 2025

NIST Office of Weights and Measures (OWM) and the Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS) are currently conducting an interlaboratory mass comparison as part of a

Map of RMAP regions without state listing

Coming in June 2025: Combined RMAP Training Event in Portland, Oregon

January 7, 2025

Every five years, NIST OWM gears up to host a Combined Regional Measurement Assurance Program (C-RMAP) training event with a state host with all six RMAP

Blog Posts

A researcher wearing a lab coat uses tongs to place a silvery sphere into a large scientific device as another researcher looks on.

One of the World’s Roundest Objects Is Helping to Build a Better Mass Measurement

Measurement in the Movies

A Scientific Christmas Tale

Events

Clipart of Person smoking Cannabis and images of cars

POSTPONED: Building a Path Forward for Meaningful Cannabis Breathalyzer Realization

Wed, Jun 18 - Thu, Jun 19 2025

We are bringing together participants from government, forensic laboratories, industry, academia, law enforcement

Additive Construction The Path to Standardization III

Additive Construction – The Path to Standardization Continues III

Mon, Aug 18 - Wed, Aug 20 2025

The event, Additive Construction – The Path to Standardization Continues, will bring together industry and academic

Projects and Programs

OWM Laboratory Metrology Training for mass metrology

OWM Training Program: Metrology, Metrication, and More!

Ongoing

OWM offers a variety of in-person, online, and "blended" training classes and materials that provide guidance instruction on national legal metrology standards, weights and measures field inspection procedures, and laws and regulations related to packaging and labeling. OWM provides technical

Strain Measurement for Semiconductor Devices

Ongoing

Mechanical strain is hugely important to semiconductor devices and packages while also being difficult to measure accurately. Strain is engineered into CMOS channels to improve carrier mobility for higher performance at lower power but is also intrinsically present from manufacturing processes where

GadInk filled neutron transmission grating

Interferometry: INFER - Neutron Interferometric Microscopy of Small Forces and Hierarchical Structures

Ongoing

Multi-scale Images and Hierarchical Structures One of the keys identified by the 2015 DOE report, “Challenges at the Frontiers of Matter and Energy: Transformative Opportunities for Discovery Science” are methods that can study hierarchical systems. Such systems include the propagation of

Quantifying the environmental contributions to mass change

Ongoing

Experiments using two types of centimeter scale oscillators are described: the double paddle oscillator (DPO) and a commercial quartz crystal microbalance (QCM). Double Paddle Oscillator (DPO) Since mass changes are mostly on the surface of mass artifacts, we have implemented a micro-weighing sensor

Publications

Flexures for Kibble balances: Minimizing the effects of anelastic relaxation

July 1, 2024

Author(s)

Lorenz Keck, Stephan Schlamminger, René Theska, Frank Seifert, Darine El Haddad

Modern weighing cells would not be possible without flexure technology. Flexures are thin metal strips that form pivots, and they can be engineered to bend in a

The Quantum Electro-Mechanical Metrology Suite

March 27, 2024

Author(s)

Frank Seifert, Lorenz Keck, David B. Newell, Darine El Haddad

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is building a robust open-source hardware and software Quantum Electro-Mechanical Metrology Suite

Gravimetric deposition of microliter drops with radiometric confirmation

September 9, 2023

Author(s)

Denis E. Bergeron, Richard Essex, Svetlana Nour, Gordon A. Shaw, R. Michael Verkouteren, Ryan P. Fitzgerald

A manual gravimetric dispensing technique is demonstrated using a micropipettor modified for use with removeable microcapillaries. Liquid scintillation sources

Using the Kibble Principle for One-Step Traceability for Mass, Force, and Torque

May 8, 2023

Author(s)

Stephan Schlamminger, Leon Chao, Zane Comden, John-Edward Draganov, Thapelo Given Mametja

Many technologies contributed to the 2019 revision of the international system of units. Notable is a mechanical apparatus, the Kibble balance. It allows the