National Institute of Standards and Technology (U.S.)

Too Little, Too Soon

Congress established a Bureau of Standards in 1901 to house and maintain the United States' standard weights and measures. In addition, the Bureau frequently took on technology development projects (such as the proximity fuze during World War II) for government agencies, contract measurement jobs for industry, and pioneering basic research in areas such as spectroscopy and biological electron microscopy. In the early 1960s, the NBS recruited a very strong interdisciplinary group in surface science, a new field situated at the intersection of basic research and technology development in electronics, catalysis, aerospace engineering, and so on. One of the leaders of this group, Russell Young, sought ways to make his expertise in the interaction of electrons and surfaces relevant to the Bureau's core areas of calibration and metrology.

In 1966, Young developed an “ultramicrometer” that used field-emitted electrons to measure very small length changes. He followed up with the Topografiner, which scanned a field emitter over a sample to create microscopic images of diffraction gratings, gage blocks, surface finishes, and so on. The Topografiner's advocates [Page 581]today see it as a precursor to the scanning tunneling microscope (STM).

At the time, though, NIST was undergoing budget cuts and Young's managers dropped the Topografiner, believing that if it was a useful tool, industry could develop (as, indeed, happened when IBM invented the STM). Young was promoted, so he entrusted gradual improvement to the Topografiner (largely hidden from upper management) during the 1970s to a young protégé, Clayton Teague.

Molecular Scales and Yardsticks

In the 1980s, as STM, atomic force microscopy (AFM), and other probe microscopy techniques took off, Teague and NIST were well positioned. NIST built one of the earliest copies of IBM's first STM, and heavily recruited former IBM STMers such as Joe Stroscio. NIST's work in this area closely tied to its core mission: for instance, NIST researchers developed ways to calibrate the sharpness of STM and AFM tips, and elaborated AFM techniques to measure very small forces and even “weigh” tiny handfuls of atoms.

NIST especially led in development of nanoscale measurement techniques to aid the U.S. microelectronics industry. For instance, NIST strongly supported work on scanning capacitance microscopy, which can detect the concentration of crucial “dopants” in microelectronic components. Teague spearheaded the Molecular Measuring Machine project, which provided closed-loop, quantitative nanoscale metrology (with uncertainty less than 0.1 nanometer) over the long distances (more than a millimeter) needed in semiconductor manufacturing. Ideas from the M3 have become standard in commercial AFMs used by the microelectronics industry.

Building and Coordinating

With this long history in nanoscale research, it was perhaps natural that NIST, and in particular Teague, would push for the institutionalization of nanotechnology. In 1991, for instance, Teague became chief editor of Nanotechnology, a journal founded the previous year to bring together researchers in probe microscopy and other nanoscale fields, bureaucratic proponents of a national nanotechnology initiative, and futurist advocates for “molecular nanotechnology.” As the National Science and Technology Council planned the NNI in the late 1990s, Teague was NIST's representative; and once the NNI was formed, he became director of the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office (the clearinghouse for all federal nanotechnology activities) and the chair of the American National Standards Institute's advisory group to the International Standards Organization's Technical Committee on Nanotechnologies in its attempt to set standards and definitions for engineered nanomaterials.

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