U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

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.

Physical Measurement Laboratory /Applied Physics Division

Quantitative Nanostructure Characterization Group

The projects within the group are highly interconnected to cover metrology and standards development as well as pursue novel device concepts, particularly for wide band gap semiconductors, magnetic nanomaterials and 2D materials. We maintain active collaborations with other groups at NIST and academic and industrial groups around the world.

Nanostructures are a critical component of innovations in high performance computing, electronics, energy conservation, renewable energy, biomedical research, and health care. We develop and demonstrate metrology techniques to address nanoscale measurement challenges. These techniques include scanning microwave microscopy, atom probe tomography, transmission electron microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, and time-resolved photoluminescence. Our goal is to push these methods beyond comparative measurements by evaluating absolute uncertainties with cross-method comparisons and calibration techniques that reveal systematic errors. We synthesize semiconductor nanostructures to serve both as test structures for measurement techniques and as building blocks for novel metrology tools and semiconductor devices.

News and Updates

Projects and Programs

extreme atom probe tomography illustration

Extreme Atom Probe Tomography

Ongoing
Sub-nanometer-resolved 3-D chemical mapping of any atom in any solid continues to be an imperative goal of materials research. If reduced to practice, it would have profound scientific, engineering, and economic impacts on U.S. industries collectively worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Such
Electron microscopy images

GaN Nanowire Growth

Ongoing
Selective epitaxy: We have demonstrated that the diameter and placement of nanowires can be controlled by using silicon nitride (SiNx) masks on top of MBE-grown buffer layers (see figure). With electron beam lithography, several patterns with 3 mm die size that provide over 100,000 controlled
Schematic illustration of the integrated near-field optoelectronic (INFO) probe showing light emission, microwave reflection lines for measuring specimen conductivity and/or magnetization, and simultaneous contact topography feedback.  

Integrated Near-field Optoelectronic (INFO) Scanning Probe

Ongoing
In a collaboration between the Nanoelectromagnetics Project and the Quantitative Imaging Project, we have fabricated and tested a GaN nanowire mounted on an AFM tip as a near-field scanning microwave microscopy (NSMM ) tip (see Fig. 2(a) below ). A tungsten atomic layer deposition (ALD) coating
(a) Schematic of a near-field scanning microwave microscope (NSMM). (b) NSMM images of a perovskite PV sample, (c) NSMM MoS2 back-gate device, (d) Spatial imaging of excited spin wave modes.

Nanoelectromagnetics

Ongoing
The primary goal of this program is metrology that enables advanced nanoscale device (including electronics, spintronics, and life science) development. Based on current trends in electronics, we are focusing on metrology for two classes of devices: (1) nanoscale devices utilizing and exploring new
View All Projects/Programs

Publications

Tools and Instruments

MBE Facility

Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) Facility

The Applied Physics Division utilizes a fully automated, dual-chamber molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) system for the growth of advanced, compound semiconductor

Awards

Press Coverage

TAKING MEASURE BLOG

Contacts

Group Leader and Project Leader Nanostructure Synthesis

Project Leaders (Quantitative Imaging, Atomic Scale Characterization, Nanoelectromagnetics)