Three Stages


A high temperature capacitance dilatometer is shown here mounted on a differential micrometer for calibration purposes. The dilatometer (stage 1) has resolution better than 1 Angstrom (10-10 m), the differential micrometer (stage 2) has a resolution of .0005 mm (5 10-7 m), while the coarse adjustment (stage 3) has a resolution of 0.01 mm (10-5 m). The dilatometer itself is linear over a range of 0.3 mm, i.e. over five orders of magnitude of its resolution. It offers users the opportunity, for the first time, to make measurements of changes of length or position with Angstrom resolution at temperatures up to 1500 degrees Celsius with a small compact sensor which is located at the sample position and at the sample temperature.

J. Genossar and M. O. Steinitz 1990 "A Tilted Plate Capacitance Displacement Sensor", Rev. Sci. Instrum. 61, 2469-2471.


Michael O. Steinitz
St. Francis Xavier University