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ATP
Project
to Turn Corn Sugar into Polymers Is a Sweet Success
On
April 25, 2000, Cargill Dow, a joint venture of Cargill Inc. and
The Dow Chemical Co., broke ground for a unique plant in Blair,
Neb. The first of its kind in the world, the new facility will
turn corn-derived dextrose into polymers that can be used for
clothing, compostable packaging and other products. These are
the first polymers created from a renewable resource to compete
head-to-head with conventional polymers made from coal or oil.
The
Blair facility will exploit new technology—developed under a NIST
Advanced Technology Program cost-shared grant—to produce polylactide
polymer (abbreviated PLA) from natural plant sugars. The critical
research and scientific support provided by ATP funding led to
the ability to make PLA commercially viable and with performance
properties on a par with petrochemical plastics.
“The
ATP project resulted in a very sound understanding of crystalline
control in a wide range of processing conditions that include
fiber spinning and drawing, film orientation, injection molding
and thermoforming,” according to Cargill Dow Vice President Patrick
Gruber.
PLA’s
unique blend of properties make it well-suited for many kinds
of packaging, according to Gruber, and it also can be spun into
fibers that complement natural fibers and combine performance
advantages of both natural and synthetic fibers. The plant is
expected to be fully operational by 2002, employing about 100
people and producing up to 136,000 metric tons (300 million pounds)
of PLA a year.
Further
information on Cargill Dow and PLA can be found on the web at
www.cdpoly.com.
Information on the Advanced Technology Program is available at
www.atp.nist.gov.
Media
Contact:
Michael
Baum, (301) 975-2763
Honors
NIST’s
Cornell Elected to National Academy of Sciences
Physicist
Eric
A. Cornell has been elected a member of the National Academy
of Sciences. Cornell, a NIST fellow and member of the Quantum
Physics Division of NIST’s
Physics Laboratory, also is a fellow of JILA, a joint endeavor
with the University of Colorado at Boulder, and a professor adjoint
in the University’s Department of Physics. Election to membership
in the academy is considered one of the highest honors that can
be accorded a U.S. scientist, recognizing distinguished and continuing
achievements in original research.
Cornell’s
research, studying the properties and behavior of Bose-Einstein
condensates, has garnered world-wide recognition ever since
he and another JILA fellow, Carl Weiman, a CU-Boulder professor,
created the first Bose-Einstein condensate, a new form of matter,
in 1995.
The
National Academy of Sciences is a organization of scientists and
engineers established by Congress and dedicated to the furtherance
of science and its use for the general welfare. Information about
the academy is available on the World Wide Web at www4.nas.edu/nas/nashome.nsf.
Media
Contact:
Collier
Smith, (Boulder)
(303) 497-3198
Weights
and Measures
NIST
Grantee Makes Best Ever Measure of 'Big G'
Unless
you’re a tightrope walker, you probably don’t often think about
gravity. In fact, even physicists acknowledge that the Newtonian
gravitational constant is the least known of all of the fundamental
constants of nature. But a new measurement of the gravitational
constant, also known as “Big G,” could change that. A team from
the University of Washington led by physicist Jens Gundlach recently
made the most accurate measurement ever of the gravitational constant.
He received a NIST Precision Measurement Grant in 1998 to fund
this effort.
Since
Big G is an essential ingredient in determining the mass of planets,
Gundlach was able to calculate a more accurate figure for the
mass of the Earth: 5.972 x 10 21 metric
tons (1.32 x 10 25 pounds).
Gundlach’s value for Big G is 100 times more accurate than the
official value accepted in 1998 by the international Committee
on Data for Science and Technology (known as CODATA).
To
measure Big G, Gundlach and his colleagues built a modern computerized
version of the torsion balance Henry Cavandish used to make the
first measurement of the gravitational constant in 1798. The balance
records nearly imperceptible accelerations from the gravitational
effects of four stainless steel balls. A schematic of the device
is available on the World Wide Web at www.aps.org.meet/APR00/baps/vpr/layp11-03.html.
Media
Contact:
Linda
Joy , (301) 975-4403
Semiconductors
June
Conference Seeks Industry Success Through Better Metrology
NIST
is co-sponsoring an international conference on semiconductor
metrology and characterization to discuss research areas that
are critical to the continued success of the industry, with special
emphasis on the 1999 International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors.
The
conference, the “2000
International Conference on Characterization and Metrology for
ULSI Technology,” will take place June 26-29, 2000, at NIST’s
headquarters in Gaithersburg, Md. Numerous research and development
areas will be discussed, including innovative manufacturing techniques,
key bottlenecks in lithography, new diagnostic approaches, and
computer modeling and simulation techniques. Keynote speakers
include Dennis Buss, Texas Instruments; Kenneth Schroeder, KLA-Tencor;
and Jaim Nulman, Applied Materials. Additional speakers include
representatives from International SEMATECH, Lucent, Sony Corp.,
IBM, Texas Instruments, Motorola and other power- houses of the
semiconductor industry.
This
year’s conference is the third in a series. The first conference,
“Semiconductor Characterization: Present Status and Future Needs,”
was held in January 1995, and the second, the “1998 International
Conference on Characterization and Metrology for ULSI Technology”
was held in March 1998.
Co-sponsors
for the upcoming conference along with NIST are International
SEMATECH, Semiconductor Research Corp., Semiconductor Equipment
and Materials International, the American Vacuum Society, the
American Physical Society, the Electrochemical Society and the
National Science Foundation.
Deadline
for advance registration to the conference is June 5, 2000. The
fee is $425. Registration information and additional details are
available at www.eeel.nist.gov/812/conference/.
For technical information, contact David
G. Seiler, NIST, (301) 975-2054.
Media
Contact:
Phillip
Bulman , (301) 975-5661
Quality
New
Members Named to Baldrige Award Panel of Judges
Four
prominent industry, education and health care leaders have been
appointed to serve on the nine-member panel of judges for the
Malcolm Baldrige National
Quality Award to replace retiring panel members. The panel
of judges is part of the award’s mostly private-sector board of
about 400 examiners who review applications for the Baldrige Award.
The judges review examiner comments and scores, select applicants
for site visits and recommend Baldrige Award recipients to the
Secretary of Commerce.
The
new members are: Ramon A. Alvarez, former vice president and group
executive, sensing and control strategic business unit, Honeywell
Inc., Shepherdstown, W. Va.; Kathleen Goonan, vice president,
clinical performance improvement, University of Massachusetts
Memorial Health Care, Worcester, Mass; Susan G. Hillenmeyer, vice
president for administration and planning, Belmont University,
Nashville, Tenn.; and Joseph A. Muzikowski, vice president, total
quality, Solvay Polymers Inc., Bellaire, Texas.
Other
board members are: Kathleen Herald-Marlowe (chair of the panel),
manager, quality, Exxon Mobil Research and Engineering, Lorham
Park, N.J.; David J. McClaskey, senior technical associate, Eastman
Chemical Co., Blountville, Tenn.; David F. Quattronne, superintendent
of schools, Indian Hill Exempted Village School District, Cincinnati,
Ohio; Vicki L. Spagnol, principal, Management Insights, New York,
N.Y.; and James A. Stahley, vice president, business excellence,
Unisys Corp., Burnsville, Minn.
Media
Contact:
Jan
Kosko, (301) 975-2767
Superconductivity
Predicting
Non-linear Effects in Superconducting Transmissions
Microwave
circuits fabricated from high-temperature superconductor materials
often suffer from detrimental non-linear effects, such as intermodulation
distortion and harmonic generation. The practical result is the
creation of unpredictable interference signals with the frequency
band of interest for many microwave applications. These non-linear
effects can seriously compromise the utility of microwave devices
fabricated from HTS materials. An experimental technique is urgently
needed to predict the non-linear response of HTS microwave devices
based on the HTS materials, prior to device fabrication.
In
response to this need, researchers at NIST
and the Naval Research Laboratory have developed a new screening
technique for predicting the nonlinear response of microwave devices
fabricated from HTS materials. The technique uses low- frequency
(10 kilohertz) mutual inductance meas-urements of unpatterned
superconducting films to determine the current dependence of the
penetration depth. These mutual inductance measurements predict
third-harmonic generation in coplanar waveguide devices of different
geometries patterned from yttrium-barium-copper-oxide (known as
YBCO) thin films. This technique provides a valuable method for
determining the non-linear response of HTS microwave devices prior
to circuit fabrication.
Copies
of paper no. 51-99, “Predicting Non-linear Effects in Superconducting
Microwave Transmission Lines from Mutual Inductance Measurements,”
are available from Sarabeth
Harris, MC104, NIST, Boulder, Colo. 80303-3337; (303) 497-3237.
Media
Contacts:
Fred
McGehan,(Boulder)
(303) 497-3246
Editor’s
Note: Subscribers who get NIST Update by regular mail may
not have received the April
24, 2000, issue due to a temporary problem with bulk mailings
out of the agency. Anyone wishing to get a print copy of that
newsletter should contact Gayle
Swenson, (301) 975-2770.
Editor:
Michael Newman
HTML conversion: Crissy
Robinson
Last updated: May 8, 2000
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