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News and Updates

Displaying 501 - 525 of 648

Laser Radiometry: Powering Up

"If you made a long distance phone call or sent an email today, or if you're wearing clothes, then you are benefiting directly from our laser services," says

Looking At and Into the Ultra-Small

NIST is taking a huge step into the ultra-small with the Precision Imaging Facility (PIF) now being outfitted in new Precision Measurement Laboratory on the

New Point for Dew Point

Peter Huang of the Sensor Science Division's Temperature and Humidity group has devised a new humidity generator that enables dew-point measurements up to 98 °C

Beaming Up on the Way to Space

Space may be the final frontier. But often a few trips to PML are necessary before things can get off the ground. One recent case in point is the test of an

First, Fast, and Faster

Scientists in PML's Quantum Measurement Division have produced the first superluminal light pulses made by using a technique called four-wave mixing, creating

Argon Cleaning Helps Trapped Ions Chill Out

The reliability of trapped-ion quantum information systems – a promising candidate technology for an eventual quantum computer – can be dramatically improved by

Toward a Global Microwave Standard

Much of what is known about decadal climate change – and much of what appears on the evening weather forecast as well – comes from satellite-based remote

UV Lithography: Taking Extreme Measures

Sometime soon, microchip fabricators will take the next major step in the relentless reduction of feature size, from the current minimum of 22 nm down to 10 nm

Bright Future for GaN Nanowires

The gallium nitride nanowires grown by PML scientists may only be a few tenths of a micrometer in diameter, but they promise a very wide range of applications

Adding Up Photons with a TES

Scientists have demonstrated that a superconducting detector called a transition edge sensor (TES) is capable of counting the number of as many as 1,000 photons

Redefining the SI Base Units

Note: Much more recent information is available about redefinition of the SI units. For a comprehensive general overview, see How to Weigh Everything from