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October
14, 2004
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Super
Slow Light May Help Speed Optical Communications
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Light
waves that travel very slowly without distortion
could eventually help simplify and reduce the cost
of high-speed optical communications.
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Light
is so fast that it takes less than 2 seconds to travel from
the Earth to the moon. This blazing fast speed is what makes
the Internet and other complex communications systems possible.
But sometimes light needs to be slowed down so that signals
can be routed in the right direction and order, converted from
one form to another or synchronized properly.
Now, physicists
at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
have proposed a new way to slow light down to almost one-millionth
its usual speed—to the mere speed of a jet aircraft. As
described in the Oct. 1 issue of Physical Review Letters,*
the method eventually could help simplify and reduce the cost
of high-speed optical communications. The paper presents mathematical
calculations proving the existence of a new class of "soliton,"
a solitary light wave that can propagate over long distances
without distortion even when moving very slowly through an ultracold
gas.
Solitons
first were discovered in the 1800s when a naval engineer observed
a water wave travel more than a mile within a canal without
dissipating. Light wave solitons generated within optical fibers
are now the subject of intense research worldwide. Their very
short, stable pulse shapes might be used to pack more information
into fiber-optic communication systems. But when previously
known forms of optical solitons are slowed down, attenuations
and distortions (and therefore losses of data) occur quickly,
before the light has traveled even 1 millimeter.
NIST physicists
showed it is possible to use a very stable pulsed laser to create
a soliton that travels slowly through a cryogenic gas of rubidium
atoms for more than 5 centimeters without noticeable distortion.
The scientists now plan to translate the theory into practical
experiments. Currently, 300 kilometers of fiber are required
to delay an optical signal for one thousandth of a second, whereas
only a few centimeters of fiber might be needed using the new
class of soliton.
The research
was supported in part by the Office of Naval Research.
Media
Contact:
Laura
Ost, laura.ost@nist.gov,
(301) 975-4034
*Y. Wu
and L. Deng, 2004, Ultraslow Optical Solitons in a Cold Four-State
Medium, Physical Review Letters, Vol. 93. Issue
14, published online Sept. 28.
NIST
Fire Data/Simulations Aid Chicago Fire Investigation
Had
automatic sprinklers been present in a storage room in Chicago's
Cook County Administration Building on Oct. 17, 2003, they
likely
would have controlled and probably
limited the spread of a fire that killed six people. That's
the conclusion recently reached by National Institute of Standards
and Technology (NIST) fire researchers who provided technical
support to the Illinois governor's select panel investigating
the events that took place on the12th floor of the 35-story
Cook County facility.
In their
report to the investigation panel (headed by James Lee Witt,
the former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency),
the NIST researchers detailed their re-creation of the Chicago
fire in controlled tests at NIST's Gaithersburg, Md., headquarters
and their use of the NIST-developed Fire Dynamics Simulator
(FDS) computer modeling system to visualize the fire growth
and smoke movement in the Cook County building. The FDS simulation
allowed the NIST experts to virtually add sprinklers to the
scenario, examine their computer-predicted impact on the fire
and estimate that had the sprinklers actually been present,
a tragedy might have been prevented.
A fact
sheet on NIST's technical support to the Cook County Administration
Building fire investigation is available at
www.nist.gov/public_affairs/factsheet/cook_county_admin_bldg_fire.htm.
The complete NIST report, Cook
County Administration Building Fire, 69 West Washington,
Chicago, Illinois, October 17, 2003: Heat Release Rate Experiments
and FDS Simulations (NIST Special Publication 1021) is available
at www.fire.nist.gov/bfrlpubs/NIST_SP-1021.pdf. The investigation
panel's final report is available at www.wittassociates.com.
Media
Contact:
Michael
E. Newman, michael.newman@nist.gov, (301) 975-3025
Protecting
Industrial Networks from Cyber Attacks
A
500-member
forum of industry, government and academic technical experts,
led by the National Institute of Standards and Technology
(NIST), has released a new draft set of cyber security requirements
for industrial control systems.* These security requirements,
developed by the Process Control Security Requirements Forum
(PCSRF), are intended to be used in procurement documents
for new industrial control systems or components. The implementation
of these requirements will help protect the nation’s
critical industrial infrastructure from cyber attacks.
The new
requirements also should protect against other criminal efforts
to remotely access and control production and distribution
processes. The proposed requirements should be of special
interest to computer security and process control personnel
in the electric power, oil, gas, water, chemicals, pharmaceuticals,
metals and mining, pulp and paper, and durable goods manufacturing
industries.
Currently,
network connectivity is virtually a prerequisite for an efficient
industrial enterprise. Many of today’s systems were
designed years ago to maximize performance, reliability and
safety. Security was not a significant consideration since
systems usually were confined to in-house use and were based
on proprietary hardware and protocols. Today, however, process
control systems often incorporate off-the-shelf products,
use open protocols and connect to business networks—any
of which could allow security to be compromised.
The forum’s
draft report addresses security requirements needed throughout
an industrial control system's lifecycle including design,
implementation, configuration, maintenance and decommissioning.
The draft deals with industrial control systems such as Supervisory
Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems, Distributed
Control Systems (DCS), and Programmable Logic Controllers
(PLCs). Requirements for components of the control system
such as industrial controller authentication and sensor authentication
also are outlined.
Media
Contact:
John
Blair, john.blair@nist.gov,
(301) 975-4261
*The
PCSRF System Protection Profile for Industrial Control
Systems (SPP-ICS) is available for download and review
at http://www.isd.mel.nist.gov/projects/processcontrol/SPP-ICSv1.0.doc.
Baldrige
Award for Non-Profits Approved
On
Oct. 5, President Bush signed into law legislation that authorizes
the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to
expand its Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Program to
include non-profit and government organizations. Currently,
the award has five categories: manufacturing, service, small
business, education and health care. Most of the more than 40
Baldrige-based state and local quality award programs allow
non-profit organizations to apply for their awards.
The Foundation
for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, a private-sector
organization, has raised an endowment of more than $18 million
to help support the award program and will raise additional
funds to support this new category assuming additional federal
funds are provided. Federal funding for NIST's Baldrige National
Quality Program in 2004 was $5.4 million. The program may begin
to solicit applications for the award from non-profit organizations
in 2006.
For more
information on the Baldrige Award, see http://baldrige.nist.gov.
Media
Contact:
Jan
Kosko, janice.kosko@nist.gov,
(301) 975-2767
Mass
Metrology CD-ROM Now Available in Spanish
The
National Institute of Standards and Technology
(NIST) is distributing a Spanish-language CD-ROM
providing training for the calibration of mass
standards used for testing commercial measuring
equipment. The free multimedia CD-ROM covers the
same content taught in NIST's one-week basic mass
metrology course for public and private sector
metrologists. It duplicates an English language
CD-ROM released last fall. Both CD-ROMs include
interactive activities, knowledge quizzes, examples,
video demonstrations, and specialty graphics and
photos for specific products. The two CD-ROMs
reflect NIST's commitment to advancing uniformity
and harmonization in mass calibration measurements—critical
to domestic and international commerce of everything
from animal feed to automobile parts. Private
and public sector metrologists interested in receiving
the CD-ROM should contact owm@nist.gov
with name and mailing information. Please stipulate
“Spanish language Version” in the
request. The English language version is
also
still
available.
Quick
Links
Phoha
Named New Director of NIST’s Information
Technology Lab
Shashi
Phoha has been appointed director of the Information
Technology Laboratory at the National Institute of
Standards and Technology (NIST). Bringing university,
government, and industry experience to her new position,
Phoha comes to NIST after serving as professor of
electrical engineering and head of the Information
Science and Technology Division of the Applied Research
Laboratory at Pennsylvania State University. Prior
to going to Penn State in 1991, Phoha was the director
of Information Systems Sciences at the Computer Science
Corporation, department head of C3 Systems at ITT’s
Defense Communications Division, and project leader
of information research and development at The MITRE
Corporation.
One
of NIST’s seven laboratories, the Information
Technology Laboratory (ITL) conducts research and
develops test methods and standards for emerging and
rapidly changing information technologies. ITL achieves
its goals by drawing on its capabilities in mathematical
and computational sciences, advanced networking, computer
security, information access, software and conformance
testing, and statistical engineering. For more information
on ITL, see www.itl.nist.gov.
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