During the last few decades radiation thermometers with thermopile detectors have been used in many applications in industry, maintenance and medicine, and are starting to merge into the consumer market. Nowadays hundreds of thousands of radiation thermometers with thermopiles are manufactured by a 100 Million-Euro industry. The industrial use of radiation thermometers started in the beginning of the 20~(-th) century with instruments like the well-known portable instrument by Charles Fery [1] and the Ardometer by Keinath [2]. Both instruments used refractive optics and radiation thermocouples or thermopiles. Nearly unknown within the radiation thermometry community is the fact that the development of radiation thermometers with thermopiles had already started in Italy almost 100 years before. Based on previous works of Seebeck, Leopoldo Nobili (1784-1835) developed a very sensitive thermometer, the so-called Thermomultiplicator that was able to serve as a detector for a radiation thermometer. Further optimisation together with Macedonio Melloni (1798-1854) increased the sensitivity of their instruments to such an extent that they were able to prove that insects have a temperature above ambient and that the moon is extremely cold.
展开▼
