Scientists Create Carbon Nanothermometer

Scientists continue to create new uses for carbon nanotubes, those tiny cylinders comprised of pure carbon. A paper published today in the journal Nature describes a thermometer made out of a column of carbon just 10 micrometers long. According to the report, the nanodevice can measure temperatures between 50 and 500 degrees Celsius and “should be suitable for use in a wide variety of microenvironments.”

Yihua Gao and Yoshio Bando of the National Institute for Materials Science in Ibaraki, Japan, filled nanotubes less than 150 nanometers in diameter with a one-dimensional column of liquid gallium. In larger quantities, liquid gallium has one of the widest temperature ranges of any metal, spanning 30 to 2,403 degrees C. The researchers determined that nanoquantities of the metal behave similarly and that the liquid’s behavior within the tube changes predictably with temperature.

Like the mercury in a conventional thermometer, the minuscule meniscus in the nanodevice moves up and down as the gallium expands and contracts in response to temperature. Gao and Bando suggest the new nanothermometer will extend temperature measurements in very small systems beyond the four to 80 kelvins range that current electronic-based devices can achieve.

Media Contact

Sarah Graham Scientific American

All latest news from the category: Process Engineering

This special field revolves around processes for modifying material properties (milling, cooling), composition (filtration, distillation) and type (oxidation, hydration).

Valuable information is available on a broad range of technologies including material separation, laser processes, measuring techniques and robot engineering in addition to testing methods and coating and materials analysis processes.

Back to home

Comments (0)

Write a comment

Newest articles

Memory Self-Test via Smartphone

… Can Identify Early Signs of Alzheimer’s disease. Dedicated memory tests on smartphones enable the detection of “mild cognitive impairment”, a condition that may indicate Alzheimer’s disease, with high accuracy….

The Sound of the Perfect Coating

Fraunhofer IWS Transfers Laser-based Sound Analysis of Surfaces into Industrial Practice with “LAwave”. Sound waves can reveal surface properties. Parameters such as surface or coating quality of components can be…

Customized silicon chips

…from Saxony for material characterization of printed electronics. How efficient are new materials? Does changing the properties lead to better conductivity? The Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems IPMS develops and…

Partners & Sponsors