Ceramics 1998 Programs and Accomplishments

Published

January 1, 1999

Author(s)

Stephen W. Freiman

Abstract

The mission of the Ceramics Division can be stated as follows:Work with industry, standards bodies, academia, and other government agencies in providing the leadership for the Nation's measurements and standards infrastructure for ceramic materials.The activities of the NIST Ceramics Division are organized in the form of Programs, emphasizing a desire to foster collaborations within the Division as well as throughout the Materials Science and Engineering Laboratory, and to conduct focused activities on a scale that can lead to greater benefits for the U.S. ceramics community. The Programs are made up of projects whose primary development of Standard Reference Materials and databases are integrated within the relevant Programs. At the same time, we continue to maintain a Division management structure in the form of Groups.Our definition of ceramics has broadened to include a wide range of materials of particular interest for electronic and optoelectronic applications. While many of these materials fall in a category generally thought of as semiconductors, there are common themes such as phase content, the role of microstructure, and their brittle nature. These materials are frequently used in film form, and our newly formed Ceramic Thin Film Program is addressing generic measurement issues associated with a broad range of applications for thin film devices. During the past year we established a panel representing the electronic and optoelectronic industries to help oversee the Film Program and advise us as to the measurement and standards needs of these communities.This year we are very pleased that the Synchrotron Radiation Team of Andrew Allen, David Black, Harold Burdette, Daniel Fischer, Gabrielle Long, Richard Spal, and Joseph Woicik, has been awarded a Bronze Medal by NIST. This team has created unique x-ray measurement facilities at both the National Synchrotron Light Source at the Brookhaven National Laboratory and at the Advanced Photon Source at the Argonne National Laboratory. They address an important aspect of our mission by making unique facilities coupled with technical expertise available to researchers from both industry and academia. The availability of such measurement capabilities has led to a number of significant accomplishments over the years.We continue to look for improved ways to develop meaningful communication with our customers, I.e. the engineers and scientists in both companies and universities who use the measurement tools that we are developing. Workshops continue to be an important way for us to establish industrial priorities. Another technique for improved communication which we have found is through consortia where direct commentary and feedback from the members occurs frequently. As an example, the Ceramic Processing Characterization Consortium has grown to - 78 members. This Consortium is designed to maximize the dialogue between NIST and the industrial members in order to get direct input as to their measurement needs. We are also increasingly using the World Wide Web as a means of disseminating critical data and measurements to our customers through a vehicle that we call The Ceramic WebBook.Tow Programs (High Temperature Superconductivity and Evaluated Materials Data) no longer appear in this report. In the case of high temperature superconductivity, all of the work now involves determination of phase diagrams and is described under the newly formed phase Equilibria Program. Whe work on evaluated data is either discussed directly in the program which it impacts, e.g. Phase Equilibria, or is listed in the section entitled Other Ceramics Division Projects. This latter section encompasses several important areas including data and x-ray SRM's which do not clearly fit under other programmatic descriptions.

Citation

NIST Interagency/Internal Report (NISTIR) - 6247

Report Number

6247

NIST Pub Series

NIST Interagency/Internal Report (NISTIR)

Pub Type

NIST Pubs

Keywords

coatings, machining, phase equilibria, processing, synchrotron radiation, thin film measurements and standards, webbook

Citation

Freiman, S. (1999), Ceramics 1998 Programs and Accomplishments, NIST Interagency/Internal Report (NISTIR), National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD (Accessed October 31, 2024)