Patent ID: 9568377
Date: 2017-02-14
CPC Classifications: B82Y,G01K,Y10S

Claim:
1. A method of detecting a change in a temperature of a temperature sensing material comprising: illuminating the temperature sensing material with a light source emitting incident light, where the temperature sensing material is comprised of, a dielectric matrix, where the dielectric matrix is stable at the temperature of the temperature sensing material, and where the dielectric matrix has a first electronic conductivity at the temperature of the temperature sensing material, a plurality of metallic nanoparticles dispersed in the dielectric matrix, where an individual metallic nanoparticle in the plurality of metallic nanoparticles has a second electronic conductivity, where the second electronic conductivity is greater than 10 collecting exiting light, where the exiting light is light that originates at the light source and is transmitted, reflected, scattered or a combination thereof by the temperature sensing material; monitoring an optical signal based on a comparison of the incident light and the exiting light using optical spectroscopy; and detecting a shift in the optical signal, thereby detecting the change in the temperature of the temperature sensing material.