What this work contributes
NIST describes a radiometer that infers laser power from the force carried by photons while allowing the beam to continue along a collinear path. Its comparison against an existing primary standard and explicit expanded-uncertainty budget illustrate how a small force becomes a defensible quantitative result.
Where the evidence stops
Quoted uncertainty is for this instrument and its specified laboratory conditions, not a performance guarantee for a new thrust stand or company-built device.
Keep the conditions with the result
- Measured / modeled quantity
- Laser power inferred from photon momentum
- Reported scale
- 1–10 kW comparison; expanded uncertainty 2.1% at 1–2 kW and 1.2% above 2 kW
- Conditions
- Specified laboratory instrument using an analytical balance and a collinear input/output optical path.
- Evidence context
- Demonstrated metrology system — Williams et al., 2021
- Design use
- Borrow the explicit uncertainty-budget approach. This is a benchmark, not permission to promise NIST-level capability or a recommendation to use a high-power laser in MF-01.
Original source
Paul Williams; Kyle Rogers; Joshua A. Hadler; Alexandra Artusio-Glimpse; John Lehman. Axial force radiometer for primary standard laser power measurements using photon momentum. National Institute of Standards and Technology (2021).
Source date: 2021-01-11.
No DOI listed for this record. Use the original institutional source.
How we use it
This record belongs to Photon momentum. Its evidence label describes the cited work, not the maturity of a Metric Flight device. Follow the original methods, corrections and conditions before transferring a result to a different geometry or scale.
Editorial note reviewed 19 October 2026. AI assisted research discovery and synthesis. Citation metadata and claims were checked against primary publication or institutional records; full-text access varies. Read the source for the complete method.