Change temperature within very small timeframe

[TeunKeusters]

I had no idea where to place this, so my apologies if I chose the wrong topic.

Hi,

For a certain application I need to heat very small (< 0.2 mm^3) quantities of ethanol until it vaporizes (78 °C) and then cool it down again until it's a liquid again. The hard part is that this all needs to happen within 1 second. Do you guys have any idea whether this would be possible (both theoretically and practically)?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Nidum]

Maybe . Please tell us more about what you are trying to do .

 

[mfb]

A very small electric heating element in good contact to the ethanol, surrounded by a colder environment?

 

[anorlunda]

A hot heat sink, followed by a cold heat sink. Maybe sauce pans for heat sinks.

 

[TeunKeusters]

Thanks for responding guys! I'll indeed elaborate somewhat on the application:
I am working on some kind of soft actuator. It works by mixing ethanol with silicones. When the mixture is heatened, the ethanol (which is now distributed around the silicones in the form of bubbles) expands, causing the entire thing to grow. This works, but now I am trying to make it so that the actuator/muscle can contract and relax within a second. I have no experience, nor knowledge considering lasers. Could it be possible to heat the thing up very locally. And moreover, would it be possible to cool it in the same timeframe?

 

[mfb]

Cooling only works with a contact to a colder object unless the ethanol is so spread out that radiation is relevant. The same applies for this colder object - which means it should stay cold all the time. Therefore the heating source has to be powerful enough to overcome the cooling.