Ultrafast response micropipette-based submicrometer thermocouple

Abstract

Submicrometer-size thermocouples at the tip of gold-coated glass micropipettes containing a platinum core were produced and tested. The response time of such thermocouples measured with different techniques appeared to be not bigger than a few microseconds. The calculations indicate that the spatial selectivity of this new class of thermocouple devices can be less than 2 pm along the pipette and less than 50 nm across the pipette. The suitability of this thermocouple for light intensity measurements with micrometer spatial resolution is demonstrated by measuring the focused beam of an argon-ion laser. In addition, such thermocouples are intrinsically suitable for applications in scanned probe microscopies. All these unique advantages make the pipette thermocouples a new and promising sensor in a variety of applications.

Fabrication and Characterization of Needle-Type

“…Recently, the use of a laser puller for the fabrication of ultra-microelectrodes was proposed using borosilicate capillaries [30,31] or Teflon tubes [32] as insulating material. Due to the fast and reproducible local heating of a glass capillary together with an inserted metal wire the metal wire is pulled simultaneously with the glass leading to a drastic decrease of its diameter and a simultaneous tight seal of the metal within the glass capillary.…”

Investigating material and functional properties of static random access memories using cantilevered glass multiple-wire force-sensing thermal probes

“…In terms of the probes that were designed as thermocouples, in which a junction between two different metals is created and the alterations in voltage between the two metals are detected, most of such probes have been based on thin-film deposition technology. [2][3][4][5] However, probes, which have been prepared by these methods, have a very strong disadvantage since the deposited thin film can be readily damaged or removed as a result of the contact of the tip with a surface. This is especially the case since the pressures generated at such a fine point can be very large, especially at the tip, and this easily damages and removes the thin-film interconnection that is essential for thermal sensitivity.…”

Scanning Joule expansion microscopy at nanometer scales

“…[4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] To increase SThM spatial resolution, much effort has been focused towards reducing sensor size to submicrometer scales. This, however, has come at the cost of fabrication difficulty, particularly for sensor diameters below 0.5 m. [6][7][8][9][10][11][12] In addition, the best resolution reported so far has been about 25 nm, which is limited by the size of the tip-sample liquid film bridge. 12 In response to increased fabrication difficulty as well as to further improve the resolution, we propose a new technique called scanning Joule expansion microscopy ͑SJEM͒ which eliminates the need for sensor nanofabrication while having a potential spatial resolution of 1-10 nm.…”