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Physics

Optical physics and communications

What a Frequency Comb Can Do

What a Comb Can Do
What a Comb Can Do
By making a simple measurement, the optical frequency comb has changed science. So what can a comb do? A lot—and the possibilities are constantly expanding. Learn more: https://www.nist.gov/topics/physics/optical-frequency-combs

News and Updates

green laser

Tiny New Lasers Fill a Long-Standing Gap in the Rainbow of Visible-Light Colors, Opening New Applications

Researchers have created orange, yellow and green lasers tiny enough to fit on a chip.
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Johnny Jiménez

NIST Offers New Calibration Service for Wavemeters

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A high-tech laboratory with large black equipment featuring two circular insets showing detailed machinery setups. A computer workstation is in the foreground.

From Pandemics to Pedicures: NIST Rebuilds World-Class UV Calibration System

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pump laser illustration

With Some Bumps, NIST Scientists Devise a Novel Way to Extend the Wavelength Range of Microcombs

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View optical physics and communications events
View optical physics and communications publications

Projects and Programs

Spectroscopic ellipsometry measurement of a 2D monolayer and the optical property for such a thin layer.

Optical and Optoelectronic Materials Characterization

Ongoing
Today's electronics have reached a point where sheer computation power has combined form and function as the key driver of large consumer markets. The demand for portable and pervasive electronics with greater functionality promises significant changes over the next decades in how society interacts

Calibration of Space Weather Observational Instruments at NIST

Ongoing
Space-weather events are naturally occurring phenomena caused by activity on the Sun that affect us here on Earth. Solar storms can impact technology we rely on daily, like e.g. the Global Positioning System (GPS), communication satellites, and electric power grids. Various phenomena that originate

Optical grating scatterometry

Ongoing
In the past few years, scatterometry has emerged as a method for performing linewidth and line profile metrology, especially by the semiconductor industry. The method uses a periodic target containing repetitive lines whose profile, i.e., its width, height, and shape, is to be determined. The
EUV optics degradation in space

Degradation of extreme-ultraviolet optics

Ongoing
The primary degradation process in EUVL tools and satellite instruments begins by the adsorption of water or carbonaceous molecules from the vacuum environment onto the optic surface. The optic is damaged if the molecule undergoes photon-stimulated decomposition before it can (reversibly) thermally

Software

HolograFREE

An electron hologram is a fringe modulated image containing the amplitude and phase information of an electron transparent object. The HolograFREE routines

Modeled integrated scatter tool (MIST)

The MIST program has been developed to provide users with a general application to model an integrated scattering system. The program performs an integration of

Tools and Instruments

Awards