Sub-picowatt resolution calorimetry with niobium nitride thin-film thermometer

High-resolution calorimetry has many important applications such as probing nanoscale thermal transport and studying the thermodynamics of biological and chemical systems. In this work, we demonstrated a calorimeter with an unprecedentedly high resolution at room temperature using a high-performance resistive thermometry material, niobium nitride (NbN(x)). Based on a theoretical analysis, we first showed that the heat flux resolution of a resistive-thermometry based calorimeter depends on the parasitic thermal conductance of the device and the temperature coefficient of resistance (TCR) of the thermometer, when the noise is limited by the Johnson noise. Based on this analysis, we then developed a calorimeter using NbNx as the thermometry material because it possesses both high TCR (~0.67%/K) and a low thermal conductivity (k ~ 1.1 W/m K). This calorimeter, when used with the modulated heating scheme, demonstrated an unprecedentedly high power resolution of 0.26 pW at room temperature. In addition, NbNx based resistive thermometry can also be extended to cryogenic temperature, where the TCR is shown to be significantly higher.