The Big Quantum Chill: NIST Scientists Modify Common Lab Refrigerator to Cool Faster With Less Energy

The time and energy required to chill materials to temperatures near absolute zero has been dramatically reduced

25-Apr-2024 - By modifying a refrigerator commonly used in both research and industry, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have drastically reduced the time and energy required to cool materials to within a few degrees above absolute zero. The scientists say that their ...

Molecules have an orientation, and scientists have a new way to measure it

Molecular orientation is key to designing better materials

12-Dec-2022 - In some materials, the molecules line up in a regular, repeating pattern. In others, they all point in random directions. But in many advanced materials used in medicine, computer chip manufacturing and other industries, the molecules arrange themselves in complex patterns that dictate the ...

New quantum material discovered

A research team came across a surprising form of "quantum criticality". This could lead to a design concept for new materials

26-May-2021 - In everyday life, phase transitions usually have to do with temperature changes – for example, when an ice cube gets warmer and melts. But there are also different kinds of phase transitions, depending on other parameters such as magnetic field. In order to understand the quantum properties of ...

Crystalline supermirrors for trace gas detection in environmental science and medicine

Analysis of particularly complex gas mixtures with unprecedented accuracy

25-May-2021 - In an international cooperation with partners from industry and research, physicists from the University of Vienna, together with Thorlabs, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the University of Kansas, have now succeeded for the first time in demonstrating ...

Nanoparticle gel unites oil and water in manufacturing-friendly approach

Novel gel-creation method could open applications in water filtration, other applications

15-Feb-2021 - Oil and water may not mix, but adding the right nanoparticles to the recipe can convert these two immiscible fluids into an exotic gel with uses ranging from batteries to water filters to tint-changing smart windows. A new approach to creating this unusual class of soft materials could carry them ...

Room Temperature Conversion of CO₂ to CO: A New Way to Synthesize Hydrocarbons

New method could potentially reduce dioxide emission into the atmosphere and slash costs of chemical manufacturing

04-Nov-2020 - Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and their colleagues have demonstrated a room-temperature method that could significantly reduce carbon dioxide levels in fossil-fuel power plant exhaust, one of the main sources of carbon emissions in the ...

NIST Study Identifies Chemical Blends as Possible Alternative Refrigerants

31-May-2019 - More than a dozen chemical blends could serve as alternative refrigerants that won’t heat the atmosphere as much as today’s refrigerants do, or catch fire, according to a new computational study by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The NIST study identified the 22 “best” ...

Researchers boost intensity of nanowire LEDs

26-Mar-2019 - Nanowire gurus at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have made ultraviolet light-emitting diodes (LEDs) that, thanks to a special type of shell, produce five times higher light intensity than do comparable LEDs based on a simpler shell design. Ultraviolet LEDs are used in a ...

Simulations Suggest Graphene Can Stretch to Be a Tunable Ion Filter

28-Nov-2018 - Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have conducted simulations suggesting that graphene, in addition to its many other useful features, can be modified with special pores to act as a tunable filter or strainer for ions (charged atoms) in a liquid. The concept, ...

Making plastic production more energy efficient - with MOFs

30-Oct-2018 - An innovative filtering material may soon reduce the environmental cost of manufacturing plastic. Created by a team including scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the advance can extract the key ingredient in the most common form of plastic from a mixture of ...