Founded in 1901, NIST is a non-regulatory federal agency within the U.S. Commerce Department’s Technology Administration. NIST’s mission is to develop and promote measurement, standards, and technology to enhance productivity, facilitate trade, and improve the quality of life. NIST carries out its mission in four cooperative programs:

● The NIST Laboratories, conducting research that advances the nation’s technology infrastructure and is needed byU.S.industry to continually improve products and services;

● The Baldrige National Quality Program, which promotes performance excellence among U.S. manufacturers, service companies, educational institutions, and health care providers; conducts outreach programs and manages the annual Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, which recognizes performance excellence and quality achievement;

● The Manufacturing Extension Partnership, a nationwide network of local centers offering technical and business assistance to smaller manufacturers; and

● The Advanced Technology Program, which accelerates the development of innovative technologies for broad national benefit by co-funding R&D partnerships with the private sector.

NIST has an operating budget of about $858 million and operates in two locations: Gaithersburg, MD (headquarters─234 hectare/578 acre campus), andBoulder, CO (84 hectare/208 acre campus). NIST employs about 3000 scientists, engineers, technicians, and support and administrative personnel. About 1800 guest researchers complement the staff. In addition, NIST partners with 1400 manufacturing specialists and staff at affiliated centers around the country.

Among the major facilities to be visited at NIST is the NIST Center for Neutron Research, one of the leading neutron research centers in the world with the foremost research reactor in the United States. Nearly 2000 researchers from over 200 organizations from industry, government, universities and National Laboratories rely on the Center’s world-class facilities for vital and diverse programs. The NCNR currently provides 29 experiment stations: four provide high neutron flux positions for irradiation, and 25 are beam facilities, most of which are used for neutron scattering research. These stations include depth profiling, a residual stress diffractometer, a powder diffractometer, neutron interferometry, thermal and cold neutron triple axis spectrometers, a spin echo spectrometer, three small angle neutron spectrometers (SANS), three cold neutron reflectometers, thermal and cold neutron prompt gamma analysis facilities, a disk chopper spectrometer, a filter analyzer spectrometer, and a backscattering spectrometer.

A very special feature of the NCNR is its large volume cold neutron source. A unique liquid-hydrogen moderator produces very low energy neutron beams, which can be used to image and analyze much larger structures than higher energy (e.g., thermal) neutrons. They are used to study large biological molecules, high-tech alloys, high temperature semiconductors, ceramics – the very stuff of modern technology. The NCNR is our nation’s only neutron research center that is competitive with the best international facilities. See www.ncnr.nist.gov for more examples of this research.