High accuracy, self-calibrating photopyroelectric device for the absolute determination of thermal conductivity and thermal effusivity of liquids.

An improved photopyroelectric approach to simultaneously determine the thermal conductivity and thermal effusivity of minute quantities of liquids, which is based on a combined scan of the modulation frequency and the piston-sensor distance, is presented. A thorough sensitivity analysis and statistical analysis of the fitting uncertainties show that the method is a very accurate tool for the simultaneous determination of the thermal conductivity and thermal effusivity of liquid samples.