The UK's national measurement laboratory in Teddington, which also runs a Quantum Metrology Institute helping industry test and build quantum technologies.
The National Physical Laboratory, known as NPL, is the UK's national measurement standards laboratory. In simple terms, it works out how to measure things accurately, from time and temperature to length and electrical signals, so that a kilogram or a second means the same thing to every business and scientist in the country. Wikipedia says about 1,000 people work there, while an older trade feature said it had over 500 scientists. For quantum technology, NPL has a Quantum Metrology Institute, which brings together its quantum science and measurement expertise and gives academia and industry the facilities to test, check and commercialise quantum devices.
NPL's mission, set out when it was founded in 1900, was to bring scientific knowledge to bear practically upon everyday industrial and commercial life. Today it says it maintains the UK's primary measurement standards and supports innovation across industry. Its Quantum Metrology Institute describes itself as a leading centre for quantum metrology in Europe, and the work includes developing quantum standards, with international work on computing, communications, sensing, and time and frequency. It was also building an Advanced Quantum Metrology Laboratory at its Teddington site.
NPL's main site is at Bushy Park in Teddington, south-west London, where it started at Bushy House. It also has a dimensional metrology site in Huddersfield and an underwater acoustics facility at Wraysbury Reservoir near Heathrow. A 2018 feature added regional bases at the universities of Surrey, Strathclyde and Huddersfield and at Cambridge University. Since 2015 it has been run by NPL Management Ltd, a company owned by the government, and Dr Peter Thompson has been chief executive since 2015.
People are a big part of NPL's story. Its history includes the first accurate caesium atomic clock, built by Louis Essen and Jack Parry in 1955, and early computing, with Alan Turing working on the Automatic Computing Engine from 1945 and Donald Davies's work on packet switching, which helped shape the early internet. A trade feature said it has over 100 quantum scientists, and that its Postgraduate Institute for Measurement Science supports more than 150 postgraduate researchers with over 30 UK universities. The same feature reported that some staff worried about a shift towards industry impact, which leaders disputed, so it is a place with real debates about its direction.
As well as physicists, a measurement laboratory employs engineers, computer scientists, data analysts, materials and life-science experts, technicians who build and look after instruments, and business, policy and communications staff who work with companies. Quantum work draws on physics, electronics, optics and computing. NPL's website lists its current vacancies, and its quantum pages name a management team and academic and industry partners.
Website: www.npl.co.uk
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