A review on efficient self-heating in nanowire sensors: Prospects for very-low power devices

To facilitate the comparison of the performances obtained in past and future works, we also propose a figure of merit: the efficient self-heating coefficient (ESH), which accounts for the maximum temperature increase (in Kelvin) per microwatt of Joule power dissipated in the material. In this way, ESH values about 1 or above are indicative of highly efficient technologies, capable of raising the temperature over hundreds of degrees with less than a milliwatt of dissipated power.