July 2, 2007

NIST Receives $5 Million Funding Increase for Synchrotron Research

As part of the American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) will expand upon its synchrotron research capabilities, primarily at the NSLS, with a $5 million funding increase.

Currently operating beamlines U7A, X24A, and X23A2, NIST has a 25-year partnership in synchrotron measurement science and technology with the NSLS, solving high-profile materials science problems with industries, universities, and national labs. Much of NIST’s research is aimed at understanding how a material’s structure and chemical composition relates to its physical properties. At the NSLS, NIST researchers and their collaborators attempt to broaden this knowledge by studying different types of advanced materials at the smallest dimensional scales. Funding of $3.5 million provided in FY 2007, and an expected increase to $5 million annually beginning in FY08 should help NIST researchers and their collaborators reach that goal.

Researchers from NIST and the University of California at Berkeley detailed three structural properties crucial to making reliable electronic devices with thin films of carbon-rich (organic) semiconductors. The new capability could help industry clear hurdles responsible for high manufacturing development costs that stand in the way of widespread commercial application of these semiconductors. This image of their research was featured on the cover of Advanced Materials in 2005.

In addition to upgrading existing instruments, the ACI funding would allow for the development of two additional NIST-operated NSLS beamlines and associated instruments capable of analyzing the electronic, chemical, and structural properties of materials with subnanometer (less than a billionth of a meter) resolution. Some of these instruments will provide leading materials structure analysis capabilities of their type in the world. The new investment also will assist in additional staffing and the transition to NSLS-II. The ACI funding will provide NIST and about 200 academic and industrial researchers annually with the necessary tools to discover and characterize the next generation of novel materials and structures for a host of modern products.

ARTICLE BY: Kendra Snyder