Abstract
A new application of the liquid thermoelectrics (LTE) is proposed: the detection of phase transitions in ferroelectric solids. Concretely, the Seebeck effect generated in a known LTE material (dodecanol + 10−1 mol L−1 tetrabutylammonium nitrate) was used as a tool for the detection of the antiferro–paraelectric phase transition of triglycine sulphate (TGS). TGS was selected as a sample because it is a ferroelectric solid with a convenient Curie point close to room temperature (about 49 °C). The advantages of the present method (compared with previously reported investigations performed with solid thermoelectric materials as sensors) are two: (1) no coupling fluid between the sensor and sample is necessary (the liquid sensor–solid sample thermal contact is perfect); (2) the liquid sensor allows for investigations of samples with irregular geometry. Based on the recently developed theory of the photothermoelectric method, the behaviour of the static volume specific heat and dynamic thermal diffusivity, conductivity and effusivity of TGS around the Curie point has been obtained.
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