Electromechanical nanothermometer

A new concept of an electromechanical nanothermometer based on the interaction and relative motion of the components of a nanosystem is proposed. The nanothermometer can be used for accurate temperature measurements in spatially localized regions with dimensions of several hundred nanometers. Temperature measurements are carried out through the measurements of the conductivity of the components assuming that the total conductivity of the system depends significantly on the temperature. A model implementation of the nanothermometer based on the (6, 6) @ (11, 11) double-walled carbon nanotube is suggested. The dependence of the interwall interaction energy on the relative displacement of the walls of the (6, 6) @ (11, 11) nanotube is computed ab initio using density functional theory. The conductivity of the walls is calculated within the Huckel-Hubbard model. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.