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.

Physics

Radiation

News and Updates

Projects and Programs

Dosimetry_ResearchandMetrology_PhotonAbsorbedDose_pic_Tosh

Photon Absorbed-Dose-to-Water Primary Standards

Ongoing
Modeling of accumulated-dose dependence in the heat defect of H2/O2 exhibits expected peak behavior in qualitative agreement with experiment, and is being further refined for purposes of reducing the associated relative uncertainty from its present value of 0.3 %. Studies to quantify the possible
Monte-Carlo simulation

Basic Metrology: Primary Standards for Radionuclides

Ongoing
As the National Metrology Institute (NMI) for the US, NIST is responsible for realizing the SI units. The derived SI unit for activity of a radionuclide is the becquerel, Bq. NIST has a proud history of contributing to the development of new and improved primary standardization methods for the Bq to

Publications

Spectroscopic Measurements and Models of Energy Deposition in the Substrate of Quantum Circuits by Natural Ionizing Radiation

Author(s)
Joseph Fowler, Paul Szypryt, Raymond Bunker, Ellen Edwards, Ian Fogarty Florang, JIANSONG GAO, Shannon Hoogerheide, Ben Loer, Hans Mumm, Nathan Nakamura, John Orrell, Elizabeth M. Scott, Jason Stevens, Daniel Swetz, Brent VanDevender, Michael Vissers, Joel Ullom
Naturally occurring background radiation is a potential source of correlated decoherence events in superconducting qubits that will challenge error-correction

Early Electroscopes at the National Bureau of Standards

Author(s)
Bert Coursey, Brian E. Zimmerman, Michael G. Mitch, Paul Frame
This report describes the use of five electroscopes used as national standards for radioactivity for the United States during the early 20th century. This set

Tools and Instruments

Awards