The accurate assessment of temperature of objects at the nanoscale is important for the development of new computers and advanced electronics, such as those used in medical science. However, creating a thermometer that can produce accurate measurements at this level has proved difficult — until now. Researchers at IBM have created what appears to be the world’s most accurate thermometer.
The new thermometer using a scanning probe to make just one single scan, using a non-equilibrium contact thermometry technique. A single scan is necessary — anything else would disrupt nano-sized objects. The method avoids disruption from vibration, acoustic noise, and electromagnetic signals.
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This is the latest innovation from the science labs at IBM, who worked on the project with technologists from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. The same laboratory was responsible for the invention of the scanning tunneling microscope and the atomic force microscope.
Speaking with Phys.org, Dr. Fabian Menges, of IBM stated: “We started back in 2010 and simply never gave up. Previous research was focused on a nanoscale thermometer, but we should have been inventing a thermometer for the nanoscale—an important distinction. This adjustment led us to develop a technique which combines local thermal sensing with the measuring capability of a microscope—we call it scanning probe thermometry.”
Details of the new thermometer have been published in the journal Nature Communications. The paper is titled “Temperature mapping of operating nanoscale devices by scanning probe thermometry.”
