Simple, inexpensive attainment and measurement of very high cooling and warming rates

We have developed a simple, inexpensive system (<$300 US) for measuring cooling and warming rates of small (similar to 0.1 mu l) aqueous Samples at rates as high as 10(5) degrees C/min. The measurement system itself, can track rates approaching one million degrees C/min. For temperature sensing, a Type T thermocouple with 50 mu m wire was used. The thermocouple output voltage was read with an inexpensive USB based digital oscilloscope interfaced to a laptop computer, and the raw data were processed with MS Excel. (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.