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.
Perched atop a high plateau in Chile’s Atacama Desert, a long-awaited observatory is beginning to take shape: the largest suite of ground-based telescopes
Max Planck, one of the Twentieth Century’s most eminent physicists, observed, "An experiment is a question that science poses to Nature, and a measurement is
David Gerrold, a prolific American author, and screenwriter, summarizes the progress of the last 120 years when he observes, “In the 20th century, we had a
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
Like a vocal coach who extends the octave range of an opera singer, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have expanded by
Using a groundbreaking new technique at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), an international collaboration led by NIST researchers has
Researchers have spent more than three decades developing and studying miniature biosensors that can identify single molecules. In five to 10 years, when such
You’re going at the speed limit down a two-lane road when a car barrels out of a driveway on your right. You slam on the brakes, and within a fraction of a
Two new Standard Reference Materials from the National Institute of Standards and Technology give researchers and manufacturers a way to check the performance
It images single atoms. It maps atomic-scale hills and valleys on metal and insulating surfaces. And it records the flow of current across atom-thin materials
Researchers at NIST have devised a way to eliminate a long-standing problem affecting our understanding of both living cells and batteries. When a solid and an
A tooth? An angel? A strong man? Instead of seeing patterns in clouds, our scientists go to the microscope! NIST’s Ravi Attota uses a simple optical microscope
Just as a journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step, the deformations and fractures that cause catastrophic failure in materials begin with a few
The squeeze is here, and the crunch is coming. Soon. Explosive demand for high-speed wireless communication is placing growing pressure on the limited frequency
What drives cells to live and engines to move? It all comes down to a quantity that scientists call “free energy,” essentially the energy that can be extracted
Imagine a single particle, only one-tenth the diameter of a bacterium, whose miniscule jiggles induce sustained vibrations in an entire mechanical device some
One of the persistent challenges in 21 st century metrology is the need to measure ever-more-detailed properties of ever-smaller things, from microchip features
NIST scientists have developed a novel automated probe system for evaluating the performance of computer components designed to run 100 times faster than today
U.S. government nanotechnology researchers have demonstrated a new window to view what are now mostly clandestine operations occurring in soggy, inhospitable
The NIST Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology (CNST) Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology (CNST) is pleased to announce the release of the
As engineered nanomaterials increasingly find their way into commercial products, researchers who study the potential environmental or health impacts of those
An international research group led by scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology's (NIST) Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology has
GAITHERSBURG, MD--An international research group led by scientists at the U.S. Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has