Now Reading: Bengaluru team’s thin film boosts heat sensor sensitivity 100 times
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Bengaluru team’s thin film boosts heat sensor sensitivity 100 times
Researchers at Bengaluru's Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research have created a scandium nitride thin film that produces over 124 millivolts of voltage per degree Kelvin of temperature difference near room…
The Story in Brief
Researchers at Bengaluru's Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research have created a scandium nitride thin film that produces over 124 millivolts of voltage per degree Kelvin of temperature difference near room temperature. That is nearly 100 times larger than the response predicted by conventional theory for ordinary solid materials, the team reports in Science.
The material works by concentrating electrical charges in tiny conducting regions separated by barriers, amplifying the Seebeck effect. A 7.5-nanometre-thick film gave -83.41 millivolts per Kelvin near room temperature. Applications could include highly sensitive thermal imagers, heat-flow sensors, and waste-heat harvesters. An Indian patent application has been filed covering the materials and sensors.
The Indian Opinion
Thin-film breakthroughs from Indian labs often vanish into journal archives without making it to a factory floor. The 100-fold jump in Seebeck response is real in a prototype, but scaling scandium nitride films from a 7.5-nanometre sample to a reliable manufacturing process is a leap the paper does not solve. Watch for whether the filed patent attracts industrial partners or licensing fees within two years. Until a commercial sensor chip ships, this remains a lab curiosity, not a revolution.
Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com
This story was synthesised by AI from the source linked above.
