Through this process of time-domain thermoreflectance, the thermal properties of many materials can be obtained. Common test setups include having multiple metal blocks connected together in a diffusion multiple, where once subjected to high temperatures various compounds can be created as a result of the diffusion of two adjacent metal blocks. An example would be a Ni-Cr-Pd-Pt-Rh-Ru diffusion multiple which would have diffusion zones of Ni-Cr, Ni-Pd, Ni-Pt and so on. In this way, many different materials can be tested at the same time. Lowest thermal conductivity for a thin film of solid, fully dense material (i.e. not porous) was also recently reported with measurements using this method.
Once this test sample is obtained, time-domain thermoreflectance measurements can take place, with laser pulses of very short duration for both the pump and the probe lasers (<1 ps). The thermoreflected signal is then measured by a photodiode which is connected to a RF lock-in amplifier. The signals that come out of the amplifier consist of an in phase and out of phase component, and the ratio of these allow thermal conductivity data to be measured for a specific delay time.
The data received from this process can then be compared to a thermal model, and the thermal conductivity and thermal conductance can then be derived. It is found that these two parameters can be derived independently based on the delay times, with short delay times (0.1 - .5 ns) resulting in the thermal conductivity and longer delay times (> 2ns) resulting in the thermal conductance.
There is much room for error involved due to phase errors in the RF amplifier in addition to noise from the lasers. Typically, however, accuracy can be found to be within 8%.