Scanning thermal microscopy and its applications for quantitative thermal measurements

Micro-thermal analysis: scanning thermal microscopy and localised thermal analysis.

Micro-thermal analysis combines the imaging capabilities of atomic force microscopy with the ability to characterise, with high spatial resolution, the thermal behaviour of materials. The conventional AFM tip is replaced by a miniature heater/thermometer which enables a surface to be visualised according to its response to the input of heat (in addition to measuring its topography). Areas of in...

Thermal Lens Temperature Scanning for Quantitative Measurements in Complex Fluids

In this work thermal lens spectrometry is applied to investigate the thermo-optical properties of complex uids as a function of the temperature. The method is applied in poly(vinyl chloride), in polycarbonate and in lyotropic liquid crystals as the testing samples. The focus of the discussion will be in the temperature range where the phase transitions occur. The perspective of future studies i...

A new twist on scanning thermal microscopy.

The thermal bimorph is a very popular thermal sensing mechanism used in various applications from meat thermometers to uncooled infrared cameras. While thermal bimorphs have remained promising for scanning thermal microscopy, unfortunately the bending of the bimorph directly interferes with the bending associated with topographical information. We circumvent this issue by creating bimorphs that...

Topography-free sample for thermal spatial response measurement of scanning thermal microscopy

DC and AC scanning thermal microscopy using micro-thermoelectric probe†

A scanning thermal microscope working in passive mode is described. This tool uses a thermocouple probe and is presented as a thermal imaging system. The surface temperature distribution of a thermal micro-component is presented. We point out the capacity of our system to perform surface temperature images under conditions for which most of usual techniques cannot operate. The thermal microscop...