Mono-metallic thermocouples

Nanoscale thermocouples are made of a single material and are shape-engineered to contain one or more variations in their width along their length. The mono-metallic nanowire junctions resulting from the width variation(s) exploit a difference in the Seebeck coefficient that is present at these size scales. Such devices have a wide variety of uses and can be coupled with an antenna in order to serve as an infrared detector.