An official website of the United States government
Here’s how you know
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.
At the stroke of midnight on January 1, 2023, the U.S. survey foot was deemed obsolete and the international foot (i.e., 1 foot = 0.3048 meter exactly)
The NIST Office of Weights and Measures (OWM) has long coordinated the accreditation of the State legal metrology laboratories through the OWM Recognition
In December 2022, the BIPM SI Brochure (9 th Edition, December 2022, V2.01) was published to include the four new International System of Units (SI) prefixes
The ability to transmit and manipulate the smallest unit of light, the photon, with minimal loss, plays a pivotal role in optical communications as well as
I was very sad to hear that Otto Warnlof, a longtime friend and former NIST colleague recently passed away at age 98. I have fond memories of working with Otto
Undergraduate students…are you looking for an extraordinary opportunity to propel your professional development and career forward? Well, there’s nothing quite
Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have begun an ambitious project to attack a vexing problem in the semiconductor
For decades, astronomers and physicists have been trying to solve one of the deepest mysteries about the cosmos: An estimated 85% of its mass is missing.
What are these microscopic zebra-striped squares, and why did scientists painstakingly arrange more than 6 million of them on a silicon plate just half a
For 40 years, people have used space-based sensors to measure the amount of light coming from the Sun, which gives scientists insight into climate change on
Each year, hundreds of meteorites — rocky bodies left over from the formation of the solar system — bombard Earth, delivering minerals, metals and water to our
Defective computer chips are the bane of the semiconductor industry. Even a seemingly minor flaw in a chip packed with billions of electrical connections might
To reach this point, NIST postdoctoral researcher Maria Munoz journeyed across borders and seas. Take a trip with us as we trace her career path from elementary
Trapped in a microscopic cage made of strands of DNA, molecules of a life-saving drug course through the bloodstream of a cancer patient. Only when receptors on
A team of researchers at JILA has for the first time successfully combined two of the “spookiest” features of quantum mechanics to make a better quantum sensor.
Lights, camera, action! The vision to expand training capabilities within the Office of Weights and Measures (OWM) IACET accredited Training Program has become
In partnership with the NIST research library, the Office of Weights and Measures (OWM) has launched a new NIST Special Publication Series, SP 2200: Legal
This article was originally published in March 2005 and has been revamped and re-published here. As weights and measures jurisdictions grapple with finding the
Photonic thermometers – which measure temperature using light – have been around in optical fiber form for decades. These devices, called fiber Bragg gratings
Toni Litorja is a staff research chemist in the Sensor Science Division of the Physical Measurement Laboratory at NIST. She began her career at NIST in 1999 as
Now that we are attending meetings in-person again, this presents an opportunity for OWM staff to provide some of our training directly to our stakeholders