Industrial dry ice cooling, cryogenic computing, aerospace, or polar research—more and more applications require sensors for measuring extremely low temperatures.
Microdul, in collaboration with the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW), has now demonstrated that the «MS1088» temperature sensor also works at temperatures as low as –80 °C. This opens up new areas of application for Microdul's ultra-low-power sensor, for example in the monitoring of stored vaccines or medical samples.
Prof. Dr. Marcel Meli, who conducts research on low-power wireless embedded systems at ZHAW Winterthur, and his research group carried out extensive tests in the laboratory to examine the MS1088 at temperatures below –40 °C. They used a cryostat that allows tests to be carried out under high vacuum conditions down to 4 K (≈ –269 °C). The system is operated at the Institute of Applied Mathematics and Physics by Dr. Wolf Wüster and his team, who specialize in optical and cryogenic measurement technology.
The measurements showed that the specified technical lower limit of –40 °C was successfully exceeded: the sensor circuit functioned perfectly at temperatures down to –80 °C and exhibited a relatively high accuracy of plus/minus 1.5 °C.
As the results are based on a limited number of test sensors, further tests with a larger data set are required to verify the results and improve statistical significance.
The project, which was carried out as part of an «innovation check» by Innosuisse, was launched at the beginning of the year and recently completed.
(Images: ZHAW)