U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Material Measurement Laboratory

Projects/Programs

Displaying 1 - 25 of 562
Photograph of a labeled amber bottle containing SRM 2429.

Activated Carbon and FGD Gypsum Standard Reference Materials

Completed
The role of mercury in the environment is now receiving close scrutiny because ultimately it can bioaccumulate as alkyl mercury in seafood with subsequent risk to human health through trophic transfer. Many industrial sources of mercury have been effectively reduced in recent years, but atmospheric
Ceramic AM

Additive Manufacturing of Ceramics

Ongoing
Additive manufacturing (AM) is a rapidly growing suite of technologies that has been a national priority since 2012. Compared to metals and polymers AM, the commercial adaptation of ceramics AM is still in its infancy. Nevertheless, ceramics AM is actively explored for applications in aerospace
EBSD grain orientation map for additively manufactured Ti-6Al-4V showing elongated prior-Beta grain morphology in the build direction (vertical in this image)"

Additive Manufacturing Fatigue and Fracture

Ongoing
Metal additive manufacturing (AM) is not used in fatigue and fracture critical applications despite industrial need. The goal of this project is to enable confident use of metal AM in critical applications through: Advancing metrological practice for AM-specific performance metrics encompassing the

Advanced Composites Pilot for the Materials Genome Initiative

Completed
Many computational programs exist that are being used by industry for predicting properties of polymer composites but their general predictive power is limited by how faithfully the microstructure is represented and how realistically the interfaces are handled. The computations are limited by the
diagram of lab information management system

Advanced Fluid Characterization - Laboratory Information Management System

Ongoing
Breath sampling of cannabis users. I n July 2019, the National Institute of Justice awarded our team funding for a three-year project to provide the chemical foundation for industry to develop a cannabis breathalyzer. We are developing new experimental methods to enhance the clinical, thermodynamic
Photograph depicting IC manufacturing showing glowing squares on a round wafer, with a yellow triangular warning indicator labeled UV.

Advanced IC Interconnects - Process Metrology and Models

Ongoing
Atomic layer deposition (ALD) is increasingly being utilized as a method of depositing the thin (nanometer-scale), conformal layers required for many microelectronics applications, including high - gate dielectric layers, diffusion barrier layers, copper seed layers, and DRAM dielectric layers

Advanced Mass Spectrometry Methods for Trace Detection

Ongoing
Ambient Ionization Mass Spectrometry (AI-MS) AI-MS remains a versatile field enabling direct analysis of samples in situ, requiring minimal or no sample preparation. These platforms are leveraged for the trace detection of organic and inorganic compounds, including, homemade and improvised
Interior view of a long, multistory scientific facility filled with large tubular guides, elevated walkways, and electronic instrumentation.

Advanced Materials Characterization

Ongoing
This program seeks to continually enhance the analytical competence of MML and other major operating units at NIST. Furthermore, the program makes available technical capabilities that U.S. industry and government need in their quest to compete on a global scale through improving methods and

Advanced Materials Design: Electronic and Functional Applications

Ongoing
Accelerating Materials Discovery using Machine Learning and AI Using machine learning and AI techniques along with high-throughput DFT calculations materials with specific properties are identified to accelerate the the discovery process for a variety of applications. Some of the specific materials

Advanced Materials Design: Structural Applications

Ongoing
Designing New High Temperature Co Superalloys In collaboration with the NIST CHiMaD center, an ICME approach in being used to develop new Co superalloys that are strengthened using an ordered FCC (L1 2) phase (similar to the related Ni-based superalloys). The design goals for these alloys include
Cross section of a SAC solder joint in a BGA, with sketches of potential micro specimens

Advanced Mechanical Characterization of Mesoscale Materials

Ongoing
Knowledge of a material’s mechanical properties is key to designing safe and reliable structural components for applications ranging in size from medical implants to large civil engineering structures. Traditionally, a material’s mechanical properties are measured by performing mechanical tests on
Diagram of In-Situ AFM During Resist Development

Advanced Metrology to Enable Next Generation EUV Photoresists

Ongoing
EUV (extreme ultraviolet) lithography, the technology that “saved Moore’s Law,” is widely regarded as the future of cutting-edge nanofabrication. It was developed in the United States and U.S. companies in many parts of the EUV ecosystem have established dominance in the field that must be defended
Figure 1

Advanced Microscopy for Trace and Bulk Particle Characterization

Ongoing
The goal of this project is to help develop innovative metrologies and measurement protocols for micro/nano-scale analysis of particles. In this project, state-of-the-art optical and electron-based microscopy are used to conduct research for quantitative and qualitative analysis of chemical

Advanced Spectral Analysis: Two-Dimensional Correlation Spectroscopy (2DCOS)

Ongoing
When a series of spectra are acquired from a sample as a function of temperature, pressure, electric field strength, concentration, or any experimental parameters, conventional spectral analysis is performed by monitoring the intensity change at a specific frequency. However, such a single frequency
Advancing Power Electronics with Defect Metrology, Key challenges of near market devices of

Advancing Power Electronics with Defect Metrology

Ongoing
Power electronics play a central role in all aspects of electrical energy storage, distribution, conversion, and consumption. Currently, power electronics heavily rely on Si-based insulated-gate bipolar transistors (IGBT), which have large footprints, are inefficient, and require extensive cooling

Aerodynamic Flow Visualization

Ongoing
Other videos: How Well Do Masks Work? (Schlieren Imaging In Slow Motion!) 3 Ways Of Seeing Invisible Air Flow (Veritasium) The Air You Share | All in This Together Publications "Filter Inserts Impact Cloth Mask Performance against Nano- to Micro-Sized Particles" James G. Radney, Jamie L. Weaver

Ambient and Atmospheric Pressure Mass Spectrometry

Ongoing
Surface and Trace Chemical Analysis Group employs a range of commercial pneumatically-assisted electrospray ionization (ESI), atmospheric pressure chemical ionization (APCI), and atmospheric pressure photoionization (APPI) sources for traditional mass spectrometric chemical analysis, identification

Analysis of Copper Incorporation Into Zinc Oxide Nanowires

The lasing capabilities and piezoelectric properties of single ZnO nanowires offer promise for future technologies. However, the photoluminescence of ZnO nanowires differs depending upon the synthesis method and the defects present in the sample. This project was undertaken to characterize zinc
Atmospheric Particles

Analysis and Modeling of Atmospheric Particles to Assess Effects on Climate

Ongoing
Spectral data from satellite and ground-based remote sensing instruments are used to monitor the effects of atmospheric aerosols on climate. Determinations of how aerosols interact with sunlight or infrared radiation from Earth’s surface rely upon an aerosol model that approximates the sizes, shapes
Gears with the word "manufacturing"

Artificial Intelligence for Chemical Manufacturing

Ongoing
The chemical manufacturing design process relies heavily on the recommended values that engineers and researchers usually obtain from handbooks and databases. Those sources often lack easy ways to judge the reliability of information, either in the sense of where the data come from or what the