2018 Gold Medal Award

Awarded for achievements in science and engineering. The group is recognized for establishing the first primary standard to measure optical fiber-based laser power. The standard exploits the team's innovative coatings, which are the most light-absorbing, or blackest, material ever made, and the NIST-developed superconducting transition-edge thermometer. The standard drastically reduces the traceability chain for fiber-based laser power, will improve the uncertainty by a factor of four, and enables may hundreds of calibrations per year to support telecommunications, sensing, defense, and the development of future quantum networks.