Using over a decade's experience in manufacturing nanoprobes for a wide variety of sophisticated measurements, Nanonics manufactures thermocouple probes and dual-wire thermoresistive probes for thermal measurements.

The thermocouple probes (see schematic to right) consist of a tapered wire running through a metal-coated, glass nanopipette. The external metal coating extends over the protruding wire to create a junction across which the voltage drop is temperature dependent, with an incredibly fast time response enabling both static and dynamic thermal measurements in localized regions with high precision. Nanonics also provides thermoresistive probes that provide intermittent contact imaging of surfaces. 

All Nanonics probes feature a highly exposed tip for optical sensing with free optical access from above and below and are suitable for operation with all Nanonics systems including Multiprobe operation. Click here for more information on Nanonics probes.

As the miniaturization of photonic devices continues to drive down their dimensions and increase the data rates, heating and heat removal in these devices pose significant limitations to their further improvement and development.  Methods that can probe thermal conductivity and dissipation on the nanoscale are thus critical to future development and design of thermally stable devices that can be densely integrated on a chip.  The comparison of NSOM and thermal measurements enable characterization and comparison of the thermal distribution and optical profile.

Using a Nanonics Multiview 4000 Multiprobe system with Nanonics thermal probes, researchers Uriel Levy et al. (Optics Express, 2013, vol. 21, no. 24, p.  29195) have successfully measured  a temperature rise in a photonic device known as a silicon micro ring resonator (MRR) of approximately 10 degrees for power levels of 2mW in the waveguide. The authors hypothesize the self-heating is caused by free carrier absorption in the doped silicon.   This study shows that the role of MRR as building blocks in thermally stable Si photonic devices could be problematic unless future designs address this heating issue.

Thermal images of the doped Si MRR (a) in-resonance (b) out of resonance and (c) with laser turned off

Hesham is Manager of Support and After Sales Services.

He has led a variety of R&D projects and performed dozens of installations globally of a variety of Nanonics systems.  Hesham enjoys interacting with customers and works closely with them on their experiments so they get the best use of their instruments.

Hesham holds a Ph.D in Applied Physics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in the field of SPM nanolithography.