Very high resolution power sensors are required for measuring the rate of heat production (~10 μW) of small samples of heart muscle (rat cardiac trabeculae, ~2 mm long and ~200 μm diameter). In this paper, we examine the design criteria for thermopiles to maximize their signal-to-noise ratio for heat balance calorimetry. We found that those thermopiles with a high thermoelectric figure-of-merit (ZT) are the best for power measurements. An initial prototype with a resolution of 53 nW has been built.
© 2020 Callum M. Johnston, Bryan P. Ruddy, Poul M. F. Nielsen, Andrew J. Taberner, published by Professor Subhas Chandra Mukhopadhyay
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