  A kind of novel thermal history nanosensors were theoretically designed and
experimentally demonstrated to permanently record thermal events. The
photoluminescence spectrum of core-shelled quantum dots CdSe/ZnS irreversibly
shifted with heating histories (temperature and duration) of thermal events.
The induced photoluminescence shift of the quantum dots CdSe/ZnS was employed
to permanently record thermal histories. We further modeled a kind of thermal
history nanosensor based on the thermal induced phenomena of core-shelled
quantum dots to permanently record thermal histories at microscale and
demonstrated to reconstruct temperature and duration of heating events
simultaneously from photoluminescence spectra of the quantum dots. The physical
mechanism of the sensors was discussed.
