This technology is a scanning thermal microscope device. It utilizes a thermocouple with a sharp tip on its center fabricated from a cross-junction of coated and uncoated thin films and is suspended on a nanowire device. Radiation heat received at the tip is converted into a Seeback voltage signal for thermoelectric temperature sensing. This device can operate without making physical contact with the object being scanned, enabling minimally invasive sensing, as well as with minimal direct contact between the tip and the sample. It delivers exceptionally high temperature sesnsing, offering two orders of magnitude of improvement in temperature accuracy over an Au-Ni thermocouple. Background: Electronic components are becoming smaller at an exponential rate, and the demand for high-performing, increasingly small electronics continues to grow in a wide range of industries. However, overheating is a major problem in microelectronics that has become a bottleneck to performance, reliability, and lifespan. There’s a need for technologies to sense temperatures across microelectronic devices so that points of increased overheating risk can be identified and changes can be made to improve thermal management. Existing temperature mapping techniques have many limitations. Many require contact with the device, which can potentially cause damage, and even non-contact solutions can damage electronic components due to temperature differences between the thermocouple tip and the scanned surface and heat conduction through the air and water meniscus between the tip and the sample. This technology provides a non-contact, silicon-based thermocouple for minimally invasive, highly accurate thermal microscopy. Applications:
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