Journal of Research of the National Institute of Standards and Technology articles from July 2001

Journal of Research of the National Institute of Standards and Technology archives from July 2001

Hysteresis and Related Error Mechanisms in the NIST Watt Balance Experiment.
July 1, 2001... The NIST watt balance experiment is being completely rebuilt after its 1998 determination of the Planck constant. That measurement yielded a result with an approximately 1 X [10.sup.-7] relative standard uncertainty. Because the goal of the new...

Comparison of Two Cryogenic Radiometers at NIST.
July 1, 2001... Two cryogenic radiometers from NIST, one from the Optical Technology Division and the other from the Optoelectronics Division, were compared at three visible laser wavelengths. For this comparison, each radiometer calibrated two photodiode trap...

Sources of Error in UV Radiation Measurements.
July 1, 2001... Increasing commercial, scientific, and technical applications involving ultraviolet (UV) radiation have led to the demand for improved understanding of the performance of instrumentation used to measure this radiation. There has been an effort...

Hysteresis in Transport Critical-Current Measurements of Oxide Superconductors.
July 1, 2001... We have investigated magnetic hysteresis in transport critical-current ([I.sub.c]) measurements of Ag-matrix [(Bi,Pb).sub.2][Sr.sub.2][Ca.sub.2][Cu.sub.3][O.sub.10-x] (Bi-2223) and AgMg-matrix [Bi.sub.2][Sr.sub.2]Ca[Cu.sub.2][O.sub.8+x]...

Powder X-Ray Reference Patterns of [Sr.sub.2]RGa[Cu.sub.2][O.sub.y] (R = Pr, Nd, Sm, Eu, Gd, Dy, Ho, Er, Tm, and Y).
July 1, 2001... X-Ray Rietveld refinements were conducted on a series of eleven lanthanide phases, [Sr.sub.2]RGa[Cu.sub.2][O.sub.y] (2112 phase, R= Pr, Nd, Sm, Eu, Gd, Dy, Ho, Y, Er, Tm, and Yb) that are structurally related to the high [T.sub.c]...

Compressing Spin-Polarized [He.sup.3] With a Modified Diaphragm Pump.(Statistical Data Included)
July 1, 2001... Nuclear spin-polarized [He.sup.3] gas at pressures on the order of 100 kPa (1 bar) are required for several applications, such as neutron spin filters and magnetic resonance imaging. The metastability-exchange optical pumping (MEOP) method for...

Molecular Basis of Flame Inhibition [*].
July 1, 2001... The role played by inorganic chemical additives in fire retardancy and flame inhibition is considered. Particular attention is given to the molecular level aspects of commercially important systems containing compounds of antimony, halogens,...

WANTED: MEASUREMENTS WITH GOOD REFERENCES.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... In nearly all types of activities-be they related to manufacturing, finance, health, regulatory affairs or even sports-people and organizations are becoming sticklers for measurement uncertainty. NIST, the nation's measurement authority,...

NEW NIST PRACTICE GUIDE ON ROCKWELL HARDNESS TESTING AVAILABLE.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... The NIST Recommended Practice Guide: Rockwell Hardness Measurement of Metallic Materials (NIST Special Publication 960-5)--the latest in the new practice guide publication series--is now available. Rockwell is a method-based test primarily used...

WANT SKILLS IN NEUTRON SPECTROSCOPY? GO TO SUMMER SCHOOL!(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... In June 2001, the NIST Center for Neutron Research (NCNR) conducted its seventh annual summer school geared for students at the graduate level. Partially funded by the National Science Foundation, this year's course focused on the methods and...

SEMICONDUCTOR LABS PUT NEW NIST SOFTWARE THROUGH ITS PACES.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... Forty semiconductor industry laboratories that require accurate measurements of the concentration and distribution of dopant atoms within nanometer-scale devices are field testing a beta version of NIST's new FASTC2D ("fast capacitance to...

NEW PUBLICATION SHOWCASES KEY NIST RESEARCH ACHIEVEMENTS.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... As part of NIST's 100th birthday celebration, the agency has published a retrospective of the pivotal scientific and technical papers that marked its most significant contributions to science, technology, the economic growth of the nation and a...

PAPER DESCRIBES NEW SYSTEM FOR DETECTING CONCEALED WEAPONS.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... NIST scientists are developing a system for detecting concealed weapons that could be mounted on a vehicle. Driven into a crowd, the system would scan members and identify guns, knives and other dangerous objects hidden under clothing. The...

NEW INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS ACTIVITY IN POLYMER MASS SPECTROMETRY.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... A new technical working area--TWA 28--in quantitative mass spectroscopy of synthetic polymers has been formed within the Versailles Project on Advanced Materials and Standards (known as VAMAS) to explore the development of a standard method for...

NIST SAYS "MORE ATTENTION MUST BE PAID TO REPAIR WELDS".(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... A new paper from NIST suggests that more attention must be paid to weld repairs in order to avoid failures due to problems such as stress-corrosion cracking. Even at the outset, a welded joint has a higher risk of failure from degradation of...

NIST CONTRIBUTES TO NEW ANSI STANDARD FOR FINANCIAL SERVICES INDUSTRY.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) recently approved ANSI X9.42-2001, Public Key Cryptography For the Financial Services Industry: Agreement of Symmetric Keys Using Discrete Logarithm Cryptography, as an ANSI standard. MST's role...

NIST RESEARCHERS LEAD DEVELOPMENT OF STANDARDS FOR WIRELESS PERSONAL AREA NETWORKS.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... A growing number of industry groups are developing specifications for Wireless Personal Area Networks (WPAN), such as the specifications developed by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG), HomeRF, and IEEE 802.15. WPANs, essentially cable...

NIST RECOMMENDED PRACTICE GUIDE "SURGES HAPPEN!" EXPLAINS PROTECTION OF CONSUMER APPLIANCES.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... As part of the new series of "NIST Recommended Practices Guides," a 20-page booklet has been developed for the general public on how to protect residential appliances and consumer electronics against power surges. The booklet, NIST Special...

A WEB-BASED FACILITY FOR EVALUATING PEAK-FITTING METHODS IN X-RAY PHOTOELECTRON SPECTROSCOPY.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) is the most commonly used technique for determining the chemical composition of surfaces. It is customary to fit analytical functions to overlapping peaks in a measured spectrum to determine peak...

SYSTEMATIC UNCERTAINTY IDENTIFIED IN MEASUREMENTS OF SILICON DIOXIDE FILM THICKNESSES BY X-RAY PHOTOELECTRON SPECTROSCOPY.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... Silicon dioxide is currently used as a gate dielectric material in the semiconductor industry, and it is considered necessary to measure oxide film thicknesses between 1.0 nm and 2.5 nm with a relative uncertainty (3[sigma]) of [+ or -]4 %....

INTERACTIVE WEBSITE FOR ANALYZING MITOCHONDRIAL DNA.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... A new interactive web site called MitoAnalyzer has been developed by NIST researchers that allows users to determine the effects of single nucleotide polymorphisms, mutations, insertions, or deletions in human mitochondrial DNA. The user enters...

NON-DESTRUCTIVE MEASUREMENT OF MAGNETOSTRICTION IN THIN FILMS.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... Thin films of magnetic materials deposited on various substrates are of fundamental importance to the magnetic recording industry as well to the operation of microscale actuators. Their magnetostrictive properties must be tailored to the...

SMALL-ANGLE NEUTRON SCATTERING UNIQUELY PROBES GENE REGULATORY PROTEIN/DNA COMPLEXES.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... Scientists at the NIST Center for Neutron Research (NCNR) are using small-angle neutron scattering to obtain unique information about the structure of gene regulatory protein/DNA complexes in solution. Gene regulatory proteins control gene...

ANALYSIS OF DENTAL COMPOSITES BY NEAR INFRARED SPECTROSCOPY.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... Collaborative research among the American Dental Association, the University of Colorado, and NIST led to an improved method to analyze dental composites. Vinyl resin based composites are increasingly being used as alternatives to amalgam...

NIST PUBLISHES OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE TOOLKIT FOR XML APPLICATION INTEGRATION.(National Institute of Standards and Technology)
July 1, 2001... The XSLToolbox, a freely available open source toolkit, helps developers avoid the drudgery of writing complicated transformations often needed to integrate XML (Extensible Markup Language) applications. The XSLToolbox includes a tool for...

COOPERATIVE RESEARCH DETERMINES POWER QUALITY EFFECTS ON MACHINE TOOLS.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... NIST scientists have been working with the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) to investigate the need for power quality ride-through standards on machine tools. Such standards define the level of power quality events a piece of equipment...

NEW WEB RESOURCES FOR DIMENSIONAL METROLOGY.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... NIST has launched two new web pages (http://patapsco.nist.gov/mel/div821/) that perform calculations commonly required by engineers and metrologists who are involved in ultrahigh accuracy length measurement. One web page calculates the index...

NEW FITTING ALGORITHM FOR SHAPE-SENSITIVE LINEWIDTH METROLOGY.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... Is a scanning electron microscope (SEM) image of a semiconductor line produced by a rectangular line of width w, or by a non-rectangular line of different width w'? When the lines are less than 100 nm wide and nanometer-scale accuracies are the...

DIELECTRIC BEHAVIOR OF MATERIALS FOR WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS PREDICTED FROM FIRST PRINCIPLES.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... Dielectric materials for wireless communications applications must have high dielectric constant, low loss, and temperature stability. For high-power base station resonators, the only ceramic known with the required dielectric properties is...

NEW HIGH-SPEED MEASUREMENT COLLABORATION.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... NIST is creating a "High-Speed Measurement Laboratory." This laboratory will develop calibratable highspeed electrical and optoelectronic measurements for next-generation optical telecommunications, electrical phase standards for nonlinear and...

NEW LAW ENFORCEMENT STANDARD FOR INTERCEPTS ON DIGITAL NETWORKS.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... NIST's Office of Law Enforcement Standards (OLES) has completed work on NIJ Standard 0227.00, Digital Intercept System (DIS) For Integrated Services Digital Networks (ISDN). The digital intercept system provides the capability to intercept any...

SUPERCONDUCTOR WITH HIGH NIOBIUM ARCHITECTURE HAS UNEXPECTEDLY GOOD ELECTROMECHANICAL PROPERTIES.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... The fabrication of the next generation of particle accelerators for high energy physics will require the development of new niobium-tin/copper superconductors able to carry extremely high current densities at high magnetic fields. One technique...

MAGNETIC SUBSTRATES REDUCE PERFORMANCE OF Y-Ba-Cu-O COATED SUPERCONDUCTORS.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... Measurements by NIST scientists on Y-Ba-Cu-O coated superconductor tapes revealed that the use of magnetic substrates may reduce the current carrying capacity of the tapes when they are arranged in stacks of two or more layers. This finding has...

NIST CO-SPONSORS PERVASIVE COMPUTING 2001 CONFERENCE.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... In May 2001, NIST, with NSA's Advanced Development Research Activity, cosponsored its second annual pervasive computing conference. As an open forum for the IT industry, the conference offered key perspectives on pervasive computing, including...

NIST AND PARTNERS HELP BLAZE THE PATH TO METATOPIA.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... Having an enormous amount of information at your disposal to help you make decisions is a wonderful experience. Yet, people often complain of the overload problem that comes from having too much data. Some researchers believe a partial...

NEW ONLINE NEWSLETTER LINKS RESEARCHERS AND FIREFIGHTERS.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... Millions of dollars are spent annually in fire prevention research to lessen a toll which, in the United States, amounts yearly to more than 5000 deaths, 25 000 injuries and $9 billion in direct property loss. To inform the firefighting...

NIST LAUNCHES SERIES OF GUIDES TO EU DIRECTIVES.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... Three newly issued NIST guides to European Union directives on machinery, low-voltage equipment and electromagnetic compatibility can help U.S. manufacturers carry out the steps necessary to demonstrate compliance with the EU-wide requirements...

NOVEMBER CONFERENCE TACKLES TEXT RETRIEVAL SYSTEMS.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... Everyone knows that "looking for a needle in a haystack" is tough work. However, when the needles are single bits of information and the haystack is the enormous collection of data available via the Internet, one needs help to do the search....

NIST FORMS TEAM TO TACKLE INSPECTION SOFTWARE PROBLEMS.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... Automating the process of product inspection during manufacturing should cut product development cycle time and manufacturing costs. However, the wide variety of inspection software and hardware products on the market may make it difficult to...

WORK WELL UNDER WAY ON WORLD'S PREMIER MEASUREMENT LAB.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... A drive past NIST headquarters in Gaithersburg, MD, these days might have you looking twice. There's an ever-growing stockpile of dirt on the campus' southern side from excavations, five (and soon to be six) cranes poised high above a...

RADIOMETRIC CHARACTERIZATION PERFORMED AT NIST IMPROVES ACCURACY OF THE MARINE OPTICAL SPECTROGRAPH.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... The Marine Optical Buoy (MOBY) project is a part NASA's Earth Observing System Program, and supports the validation of satellite ocean color imagery data that are used for understanding the global carbon cycle. The Marine Optical Spectrographic...

NIST AND NFPA PROFILE SMOKE TOXICITY HAZARD.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... Smoke toxicity has been a recurring theme for fire safety professionals for over four decades. There continues to be difficulty and controversy in assessing and addressing the contribution of the sublethal effects of smoke in hazard and risk...

NIST TEAM DEVELOPS SCREENING TOOL FOR NEW FIRE SUPPRESSANTS.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... The Next Generation Fire Suppression Technology Program, led by a MST scientist, is the Department of Defense's research effort to identify alternatives to the commonly used fire suppressant halon 1301 ([CF.sub.3]Br), now known to deplete...

WORK BY NIST RESEARCHER SUGGESTS PERFORMANCE BREAKTHROUGH IN SPEAKER RECOGNITION.(National Institute of Standards and Technology)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... A possible performance breakthrough by a NIST scientist involving significant reduction in error rates was reported at the 2001 Speaker Recognition Workshop, held in May 2001, in Linthicum, MD. Hosted by NIST, the workshop reviewed the recently...

NIST PUBLISHES SPECIAL PUBLICATION 250-58: CALIBRATION OF X-RAY AND GAMMA-RAY MEASURING INSTRUMENTS.(National Institute of Standards and Technology)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... NIST has recently revised and published a key Measurement Services Guide, NIST Special Publication 250-58, which describes completely the x-ray and gamma-ray calibration services provided at NIST. This publication replaces the 1988 NBS Special...

SPONTANEOUS COHERENT MICROWAVE EMISSION AT SURF III.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... Following the long established theory of synchrotron radiation emission, all synchrotron radiation is emitted in harmonics of the frequency of the accelerating radio-frequency field. Researchers at NIST have made this "picket-fence" structure...

SINGLE-CRYSTAL CRITICAL DIMENSION REFERENCE MATERIALS DELIVERED BY NIST RESEARCHERS TO INTERNATIONAL SEMATECH.(National Institute of Standards and Technology)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... NIST researchers have delivered prototype critical dimension reference materials for calibrating linewidth metrology instruments used in manufacturing semiconductor devices to International SEMATECH (ISMT) for evaluation by member companies....

NIST DEMONSTRATES REMOTE OPERATION OF 10 V JOSEPHSON VOLTAGE STANDARD SYSTEM.(National Institute of Standards and Technology)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... A NIST scientist recently demonstrated the new Windows version of the control software for the 10 V Josephson Voltage Standard (JVS) system. This software is the first to provide remote operating capability of JVS systems. A laptop computer...

CONSTANT VOLTAGE STEPS IN JOSEPHSON JUNCTION SERIES ARRAYS AT 10 K.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... NIST is collaborating with Japan's Electrotechnical Institute, which has recently become part of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), to develop a higher temperature programmable voltage standard, so that...

SEVEN-TIMES RESOLUTION IMPROVEMENT IN NARROWBAND POLARIZATION-MODE DISPERSION.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... Measurements Polarization-mode dispersion (PMD) is the parameter currently limiting higher data rates in optical fiber communications. Therefore, it is critical to have PMD metrology able to characterize these systems. In order to achieve high...

UNIFORM Ti-BARRIER JOSEPHSON JUNCTION ARRAYS FOR AC JOSEPHSON VOLTAGE STANDARD.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... NIST researchers have made the first uniform arrays of Josephson junctions using titanium as a junction barrier material. We have focused on using Ti because it can be reactive ion etched with the superconducting Nb electrodes. A considerable...

RESONATING TORQUE MICROBALANCE DEVELOPED FOR IN SITU MEASUREMENTS OF FERROMAGNETIC FILMS WITH SUB-MONOLAYER SENSTIVITY.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... Work at NIST to develop ultra-sensitive magnetometers based on micromechanical sensors has led to a new instrument for in situ measurements of ferromagnetic films. In particular, measurements of thin-film properties critical to the development...

DIRECTORY OF PRIVATE-SECTOR PRODUCT CERTIFICATION PROGRAM UPDATED.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... The 2001 edition of the NIST Special Publication 903, Directory of U.S. Private Sector Product Certification Programs, is available. NIST is obligated to provide conformity assessment information, including information on private sector...

NOVEL COMBINATORIAL METHODS FOR INORGANIC THIN FILMS.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... Over the past decade, combinatorial chemistry, which involves high throughput synthesis and analysis of a multivariable "library" containing a large number of miniaturized samples, has revolutionized the drug discovery process in the...

ELASTIC CHARACTERIZATION OF ANISOTROPIC THIN FILMS USING SAW DISPERSION.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... NIST is developing theoretical and experimental techniques for non-destructive measurement of elastic characteristics of anisotropic thin films. Presently there is a strong industrial interest in elastic characterization of thin films because...

COMBINATORIAL CHARACTERIZATION OF BLOCK COPOLYMER FILM MORPHOLOGY.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... Combinatorial methods have been successfully applied by researchers at NIST to observe novel morphologies and to establish fundamental kinetic relationships in the ordering properties of block copolymer films. Copolymers are a class of polymer...

BIOMIMETIC MEMBRANE STUDIES USING NEUTRON REFLECTOMETRY.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... Structures that serve as models of cell membranes are of fundamental importance in understanding such key biological processes as phospholipid self-assembly, molecular recognition and cell-protein interactions. Recent improvements in neutron...

A SOFTWARE TOOL FOR GENERATION OF MONSEL LIBRARIES.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... A means of simulating electron trajectories and secondary generation in scanning electron microscope samples is an essential piece of the library-based linewidth measurement system being developed under contract with SEMATECH. The NIST code for...

PROCEEDINGS OF THE WORKSHOP ON MEASUREMENT TRACEABILITY FOR CLINICAL LABORATORY TESTING AND IN VITRO DIAGNOSTIC TEST SYSTEMS.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... The Proceedings of the Workshop on Measurement Traceability for Clinical Laboratory Testing and In Vitro Diagnostic Test Systems is now available on CD in PDF format. This NIST-hosted workshop was held in November 2000 to address the standards...

NIST CO-SPONSORS IT ACCESSIBILITY 2001 CONFERENCE.(National Institute of Standards and Technology, information technology)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... NIST, along with with a private company and the Information Technology Association of America, co-sponsored the IT Accessibility 2001 Conference in May 2001, at NIST. The conference drew attendees from industry, federal and state government,...

NIST HOSTS LARGE VOCABULARY CONVERSATIONAL SPEECH RECOGNITION WORKSHOP.(National Institute of Standards and Technology)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... NIST hosted the 2001 Workshop on Large Vocabulary Conversational Speech Recognition, in May 2001, in Linthicum, MD. Workshop participants reviewed the results of this year's evaluation conducted by the division in cooperation with DoD sponsors....

NIST COLLABORATES WITH NEMI ON STANDARDS PROJECT FOR LEAD-FREE SOLDERS.(National INstitute of Standards and Technology)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... Tin-lead (Sn-Pb) solder has been used extensively as an electrodeposited surface finish for component contacts/leads in the electronics industry because such coatings provide excellent solderability, ductility, electrical conductivity and...

NEW ABSOLUTE MAGNETIC MOMENT STANDARD REFERENCE MATERIAL FOR THE RECORDING INDUSTRY.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... A new Standard Reference Material (SRM) for use in calibrating the magnetometers used in the recording industry and research laboratories has been issued. Industry should find this SRM (SRM 762) more useful than the existing SRM (SRM 772a)...