AVS 61st International Symposium & Exhibition
    Vacuum Technology Monday Sessions
       Session VT-MoM

Paper VT-MoM3
Quantum Based Vacuum Standard

Monday, November 10, 2014, 9:00 am, Room 303

Session: Vacuum Measurement, Calibration, and Primary Standards
Presenter: Jay Hendricks, National Institute of Standards and Technology
Authors: J.H. Hendricks, National Institute of Standards and Technology
J.A. Stone, National Institute of Standards and Technology
J.E. Ricker, National Institute of Standards and Technology
P.F. Egan, National Institute of Standards and Technology
G.E. Scace, National Institute of Standards and Technology
D.A. Olson, National Institute of Standards and Technology
D.R. Gerty, Sandia National Laboratories
G.F. Strouse, National Institute of Standards and Technology
Correspondent: Click to Email
The future of pressure and vacuum measurement will employ lasers, Fabry-Perot optical cavities, and quantum physics. Photons interact at the quantum level with matter such that light travels at a slower speed in gas than it does in vacuum. NIST is developing a fixed length optical cavity (FLOC) and variable length optical cavity (VLOC) that will make simultaneous ultra-precise measurements of vacuum and gas cavity photon-path-lengths. While pressure is a widely measured unit in every day processes, the standard on which it is based, the mercury manometer is quite old and traces its early beginnings to 1643. In the future, the mercury barometer will be replaced with a new standard based on quantum chemistry calculations of helium’s refractive index. This will enable the replacement of all artifact-based mercury standards. Measuring pressure optically represents a paradigm shift in the way the unit is realized and will move us from a primary standard based on an artifact to a primary standard based on quantum-chemistry calculations of helium’s refractive index. This talk will cover current status and early prototype results of NIST’s Innovations Measurement Science (IMS) project (the second year of five) that will have profound impacts on how pressure, temperature and length in air measurements are made in the future. While the primary aim of the project is to create new measurement infrastructure for NIST, it will also create exciting spin-off technology that will have large impacts for US manufacturing and world metrology.