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Physics

Spectroscopy

Colloquium - 120 Years of Atomic Spectroscopy at NIST video screenshot
120 Years of Atomic Spectroscopy at NIST

News and Updates

Grid of six B&W images of asbestos fibers taken by scanning electron microscopy

NIST Researchers Identify a Cheaper, More Convenient Method to Detect Asbestos

Researchers have verified that scanning electron microscopy (SEM) is a highly accurate way to test air samples for the presence of asbestos.
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NIST Researchers Showcase Successful mmWave Industrial IoT Measurement Capability

NIST Researchers Showcase Successful mmWave Industrial IoT Measurement Capability

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Micrograph shows six blue boxes with thin lines at the center, each connected to white rectangular shapes.

Spotlight: A New Wavelength of Scientific Exploration With Single-Photon Detectors

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A scientific device attached to a lab table has a round, porthole-like opening on one end of a cylinder wrapped in foil.

Spotlight: Near-Perfect Mirror Surfaces for Reflecting Mid-Infrared Light Better

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View spectroscopy events

Blog Posts

Alexander Kramida looks up as he sits at his desk in front of a computer screen full of data.

Shedding Light: How NIST’s Light Database Helps Bring You Computer Chips, Welded Steel and More

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Isabelle Rivera poses smiling at a computer with two monitors, one showing a spreadsheet and the other multiple file icons.

Reaching for the Stars: My Summer Internship Learning About Spectroscopy in Space and on Earth

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Christine McGinn wears safety glasses as she handles plastic bottles and other materials in the lab.

My Science Project Collapsed, but My Science Career Was Just Getting Started

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View spectroscopy publications

Projects and Programs

Breathalyzer

Standards Development to Ensure Reliable Breath Analysis in the Field

Ongoing
Numerous volatile organic compounds (VOCs) have been identified in human breath. These compounds can be produced by the body or by organisms in the body (e.g., bacteria or viruses) and provide a non-invasive window into human health. Inexpensive point-of-care devices are being developed to diagnose
Sample in cryostat.

Ultrafast Spectroscopy to Advance Microelectronics

Ongoing
Continued advancement in microelectronics, including analog and digital electronics, power electronics, optics and photonics, and micromechanics for memory, processing, sensing, and communications as defined by the OSTP “National Strategy on Microelectronics Research,” requires knowledge of material
Catalyst Testbed

X-ray Testbed for Breakthrough Catalyst Measurements

Ongoing
Interested in collaborating? See below What does this project do for industry? Current measurement techniques are unable to follow the reaction pathways during catalysis and are limited to observing only the end products or looking at catalysts outside of realistic reaction conditions. Our new
cold atom thermometer (CAT) experiment

Atomic Thermometers

Ongoing
Approach 1 Compact Blackbody Radiation Atomic Sensor (CoBRAS) The Compact Blackbody Radiation Atomic Sensor (CoBRAS) uses a thermal vapor of atoms excited by a single laser to detect BBR. From the optically excited state, atomic population is transferred to other, nearby excited states by a

Tools and Instruments

300 MHz solid-state NMR

The Solid-State NMR Facility

The newly renovated solid-state NMR facility at the NIST Material Measurement Laboratory houses two spectrometers, 300 MHz and 100 MHz, primarily used for
THz photomixer spectrometer

Continuous-wave terahertz spectrometer

The continuous-wave terahertz spectrometer makes use of two near-infrared lasers. The first laser is a fixed-frequency cw ring Ti:Saph laser operating near 840