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

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

Fraunhofer diffraction effects on total power for a planckian source.
September 1, 2001... An algorithm for computing diffraction effects on total power in the case of Fraunhofer diffraction by a circular lens or aperture is derived. The result for Fraunhofer diffraction of monochromatic radiation is well known, and this work reports...

Environmental radiation monitoring at NBS/NIST from 1960 through 2000.(National Bureau of Standards/National Institute of Standards & Technology)(Statistical Data Included)
September 1, 2001... The program for monitoring the environment in and about the site of the National Bureau of Standards, now the National Institute of Standards and Technology, at its Gaithersburg. Maryland location began in 1960. The program includes...

Vibrational branching rations and asymmetry parameters in the photoionization of [CO.sup.2] in the region between 650 a 840 A.
September 1, 2001... The vibrational branching ratios and asymmetry parameters for [CO.sub.2] have been determined in the wavelength region of 650 A to near the ionization onset at about 840 A. The study was performed using synchrotron radiation from the Daresbury...

Transfer calibration validation tests on a heat flux sensor in the 51 mm high-temperature blackbody.
September 1, 2001... Facilities and techniques to characterize heat flux sensors are under development at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. As a part of this effort, a large aperture high-temperature blackbody was commissioned recently. The...

Precision ultrasonic wave measurements with simple equipment.
September 1, 2001... We describe the design and construction of a relatively simple, inexpensive laser interferometer system for accurate measurements of ultrasonic surface displacement waveforms in reasonably friendly environments. We show how analysis of a single...

Studies of excess heat and convection in a water calorimeter.(Statistical Data Included)
September 1, 2001... To explain a difference of 0.5 % between the absorbed-dose standards of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the National Research Council of Canada (NRCC), Seuntjens et al. suggest the fault lies with the NIST water...

Exposure standardization of iodine-125 seeds used for brachytherapy.
September 1, 2001... Accepted: May 1, 1984 A method for calibrating iodine-125 seeds in terms of exposure has been established. The standard free-air ionization chamber, used for measuring soft x rays, was chosen for the measurements. Arrays of four to six...

NIST-ASME workshop on uncertainty in dimensional measurements. (Conference Report).(National Institute of Standards and Technology, American Society of Mechanical Engineers)
September 1, 2001... Gaithersburg, MD June 5-7, 2001. 1. Introduction While the use of measurement uncertainty in dimensional measurements, particularly uncertainty represented according to the ISO Guide to the Expression of Uncertainty in Measurement...

NIST uncovers potential problem for semiconductor lithography. (News Briefs).(National Institute of Standards & Technology)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... NIST researchers have uncovered a potentially serious optical problem affecting designs for future generations of semiconductor manufacturing equipment using deep ultraviolet light. The "Moore's Law" phenomenon the doubling of chip complexity...

NIST smooths transition to "safe," energy-efficient refrigeration. (News Briefs).(National Institute of Standards & Technology)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... The National Institute of Standards and Technology has contributed significantly to the refrigeration industry through its work with "alternative" refrigerants for the past 14 years, and the effort is paying off. When it became known that...

New security standard for federal agencies effective in November. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... Computer security experts at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have developed a new standard for information scrambling products used by civilian federal agencies. The standard, NIST Federal Information Processing Standard...

Brochure shows NIST research, services benefit data storage efforts. (News Briefs).(National Institute of Standards & Technology)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... There's an unrelenting space crunch in magnetic data storage. By 2006, the storage industry aims to pack 0.16 [Tbit/cm.sup.2] on state-of-the-art magnetic disk drives --a recording density 40 times greater than todays top commercial offerings....

NIST offers online metrology resource for electronics manufacturers. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... Semiconductor, electronics and data storage device manufacturers can use a new NIST web page to easily find the NIST research, products and services of greatest relevance to their industry. The NIST semiconductor/electronics industry-sector web...

New reference material simplifies SEM performance checks. (News Briefs).(scanning electron microscopes)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... The use of a new "sharpness" reference material from NIST combined with data from state-of-the-art inspection software could help make routine the currently difficult but critical task of running performance checks on scanning electron...

24 000 vests purchased based on specification for stab-resistant protective gear. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... The specification developed and issued in September 2000 by NIST's Office of Law Enforcement Standards (OLES) for the National Institute of Justice (Nil) for stab-resistant personal protective gear is now in use. For the first time, state,...

Determination of the non-uniqueness of the international temperature scale of 1990. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... In the range --259 [degrees]C to 962 [degrees]C, temperatures on the International Temperature Scale of 1990 (ITS-90) are defined at a set of natural fixed-points that have assigned temperature values. Between these fixed points, standard...

NIST Develops a new generation of frequency and time standards. (News Briefs).(National Institute of Standards & Technology)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... NIST staff members in Boulder, in collaboration with the Max Planck Institute in Germany, have demonstrated for the first time operation of an optical frequency standard with a microwave output. Their work signals the introduction of a new...

NIST develops phase-modulation servos for atomic clocks. (News Briefs).(National Institute of Standards & Technology)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... NIST scientists in Boulder, in collaboration with he Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), have developed an improved modulation method for laser-cooled atomic clocks, providing for a high level of immunity to vibrations and substantial reduction of...

NIST develops a new method for phase and amplitude noise measurements between 100 GHZ. (News Briefs).(National Institute of Standards and Technology)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... NIST researchers in Boulder have developed a system for making high-resolution phase-and-amplitude-noise measurements to support the characterization of high performance radars that use digital methods of signal processing. The new measurement...

New tool for plasma etching diagnostics developed by NIST. (News Briefs).(National Institute of Standards and Technology)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... The understanding and control of the complex chemical processes that occur in semiconductor plasma-etching reactors is critical for the microelectronics industry, as it moves toward implementing multistep etching processes, to produce smaller...

NIST scientists observe dynamical tunneling. (News Briefs).(National Institute of Standards and Technology)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... The quantum mechanical phenomenon of tunneling, which allows a system to go from one state to another through a region that is classically forbidden, has been observed since the early days of quantum mechanics. Tunneling usually involves a...

If you can define it, we can fit it. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... To expand the scope and improve usefulness to industry of the Algorithm Testing and Evaluation Program Coordinate Measuring Systems (ATEP-CMS), a NIST scientist has been developing reference-fitting algorithms for arbitrarily complex rigid...

Early ball bar measuring machine tests encouraging. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... NIST's Large Scale Coordinate Metrology Group is testing a newly designed ball bar measuring machine on loan from the University of Florida (UF) Machine Tool Research Center. Designed and funded as part of the Shop Floor as a National...

Extended temperature range for calibration of two-color pyrometers. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... Properties of metallic and ceramic coatings produced by the thermal spray process depend strongly on processing conditions. Two-color pyrometry is the most common technique used to determine particle and substrate temperatures, but incorrect...

NIST instrumentation installed at plastics film manufacturing facility. (News Briefs).(National Institute of Standards and Technology)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... Instrumentation developed at NIST has been installed in a polymer processing plant to facilitate development of manufacturing conditions for polymer films. The instrumentation addresses the need of polymer film producers for a more rapid...

AFM at NIST investigates nanoscale elastic properties. (News Briefs).(National Institute of Standards and Technology)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... The ever-decreasing length scales in many fields of technology require new non-destructive measurement tools that can cope with submicrometer dimensions. Specifically, the ability to determine mechanical properties on the nanoscale is needed in...

NIST starting DMATS program. (News Briefs).(National Institute of Standards and Technology)(Display Measurement Assessment Transfer Standard)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... NIST is conducting a program aimed at reducing the laboratory-to-laboratory variance in the performance specification and characterization of electronic displays. By advancing new measurement methods and supporting standardization in the...

NIST leads industry round-robin of photonic semiconductor characterization. (News Briefs).(National Institute of Standards and Technology)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... NIST is conducting an industry interlaboratory comparison of ex situ characterization of InGaAsP films on InP that are the basis of long-haul telecommunication components. Lack of standardized assessment procedures for InGaAsP was identified as...

New NIST measurements address response of media to rapidly changing magnetic fields as encountered in magnetic recording. (News Briefs).(National Institute of Standards and Technology)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... NIST scientists have made quantitative, vectorial measurements of magnetization dynamics of Ni-Fe magnetic thin films, simultaneously at the surface and approximately 50 nm in the interior. The measurements were performed using the linear and...

Something new under the sun: Energy walls. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... Lean against a buildings wall on a hot summer day and you can feel the suns reflective heat. To better tap this under-used energy resource, builders and renewable energy experts are integrating electricity-producing photovoltaic (PV) cells into...

U.S. economy reaps benefits of Josephson volt standard. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... Sometimes its hard to quantify a scientific advance, but in the case of a standard developed to accurately measure the volt, impact can be assessed. In fact, a recent economic study commissioned by NIST finds that the standard enjoys a 5-to-1...

Baldrige criteria: Good to go for 2002. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... Is your organization thinking about applying for the 2002 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award? If so, you can start now, basing your application on the 2001 Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence. The criteria--which are reviewed...

NIST assesses accuracy of thin film dimensions. (News Briefs).(National Institute of Standards and Technology)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... The thickness of gate dielectricsthe ultra-thin insulating films that separate electrical gates and channels in transistorsis the smallest dimension to be measured on a chip. As thickness requirements fall below 4 nm, films must be produced...

Neutron probes focus the search for insulators. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... The semiconductor industry is desperately seeking better insulating materials. By the end of the decade, state-of-the-art integrated circuits will contain more than a billion transistors, connected by thousands of meters of ultra-fine copper...

Temperature measurement in microfluidic devices. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... NIST scientists have developed a new method for measuring the temperature in microfluidic devices. Microfluidic, or so-called "lab-on-a-chip," devices are miniaturized chemical and biochemical analysis systems that may one day replace...

High temperature lead-free solders. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... Several industries have identified needs for solders that perform reliably at ever-higher temperatures, temperatures which approach the melting point of the industry-standard tin-lead eutectic alloy ([T.sub.m] = 183[degrees]C). For instance,...

Molecular dynamics simulations and neutron scattering yield new insight into protein dynamics. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... Understanding the process by which a protein efficiently folds to the physiologically active native state is one of the great challenges in biology. Proteins can also form stable, partially folded states that are thought to resemble...

Video measurements with M48 coordinate measuring machine.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... The NIST high accuracy M48 coordinate measuring machine has been retrofitted with a video microscope system to calibrate two-dimensional grid plates. Preliminary measurements on a 200 mm by 200 mm grid show a reproducibility of 0.050 [micro]m...

Interoperability testing tools for metrology equipment successfully demonstrated.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... Shortening time to market is a strategic imperative for U.S. manufacturers in an increasingly competitive global marketplace. Achieving a seamless flow of data from computer aided design part models to equipment on the factory floor is a key...

NIST reduces uncertainty for NIST capacitance calibrations.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... Recent work at NIST has resulted in a factor of three decrease in the uncertainty for certain of the highest-level calibrations of fused-silica capacitance standards. At NIST, capacitance calibrations are based on the SI farad as realized by...

NIST spreadheads guide for first responders on coping with electronic evidence.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... Meeting strongly expressed needs of the criminal justice community, the NIST Office of Law Enforcement Standards (OLES) has completed a guide on electronic evidence for law-enforcement personnel first responding to a crime scene, a challenging...

New source of superconductor measurement misinterpretation discovered. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... As part of NIST's program to develop standard measurement techniques for superconductors, two NIST scientists have identified and studied a new source of misinterpretation in critical current measurements of superconductors. The critical...

Quantized voltage steps in arrays of stacked Josephson junctions demonstrated. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... For these standards many junctions must be tightly packed into a size smaller than a quarter wavelength of the microwave drive frequency. This ensures that all the junctions see nearly the same microwave power. For ac and dc programmable...

Superconducting detector array successfully deployed through NIST collaboration. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... In collaboration with the NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center on June 2, 2001, NIST successfully deployed a new type of superconducting detector at the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory at the summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii. The FIBRE instrument...

NIST obtains microwave images using its near-field range facility. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... NIST has processed spherical scanning data to obtain a microwave image of a bicycle and a ladder using its spherical near-Field measurement facility. The technique was originally conceived in a NIST theoretical paper, and was implemented on the...

NIST researchers develop and distribute crucial optical dispersion model to the semiconductor industry. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... NIST researchers have recently derived a unique Generalized Tauz-Lorentz (GTL) dispersion model that can successfully model spectroscopic ellipsometry data for high-k thin films in the spectral range of 1.5 eV to 6.3 eV. This model can be used...

NIST scientists record THz spectra of biomolecules. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... As part of a competence-funded program in THz spectroscopy and imaging, NIST scientists have developed a novel THz spectrometer for investigating large-amplitude vibrational motions found in many biomolecules. These vibrational motions are...

NIST demonstrates quantum-mechanically-entangled, spin-squeezed states. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... By applying coherent laser beams to trapped ions, NIST staff in Boulder have generated quantum-mechanically-entangled, spin-squeezed states, and, for the first time, shown that such states can be used to increase measurement precision beyond...

Standard Non-Newtonian fluid for rheological measurements. (Standard Reference Materials).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... A new Standard Reference Material (SRM), SRM 2490, is available for calibration of rheometers, instruments used to measure the flow behavior of fluids. Complex fluids, such as suspensions or polymer melts and solutions, often do not follow the...