Collaboration

Who does what.

Precision measurement is a small field and almost nothing here was built alone. Our work brings together Metrosol’s instrument design expertise and the specialist capabilities of our partners.

Metrosol is a small specialist team, focused on instrument design and research. Other organisations bring national standards, manufacturing and worldwide support.

  • National Physical Laboratory

    TeddingtonNPL Technology Applied

    The UK’s national metrology institute, and the longest-running of these relationships. The converter technology that made the original microK possible was licensed from NPL Technology Ltd. The relationship later developed into research collaboration, with NPL co-authoring our Johnson noise thermometry papers from the first in 2015. The world’s first practical Johnson noise thermometer came out of that work. Under NPL’s Measurement for Quantum scheme, NPL also tested our converter against a programmable Josephson voltage standard, revealing a nonlinearity at negative voltages and helping identify the fault behind it.

    Our part
    Instrument design, converter architecture, electronics, firmware
    Theirs
    Thermometry standards, independent measurement, co-authorship

  • Metron Designs

    Norfolk

    Development partner on the multi-bit sigma-delta converter, alongside NPL. The linearity that came out of it, better than 0.5 ppm against 3 ppm for the best part on the market, dates from that three-way work in 2004 and is still what the family measures with.

    Our part
    Instrument architecture and integration
    Theirs
    Converter development

  • Measurement Standards Laboratory of New Zealand

    Lower Hutt

    The resistance bridge calibrator is not our technology. It was developed at MSL by a team led by Rod White, their Head of Temperature Standards, and licensed to Isotech. Production engineering and manufacture are ours, and doing it to specification meant extending what the laboratory here could measure.

    Our part
    Production engineering, manufacture, test capability
    Theirs
    The technology, and the licence

  • ThermoSI consortium

    European partnership 23IND11

    Work package 2 is taking practical Johnson noise thermometry to 1,200 °C, with a target uncertainty below 3 °C, improved shielding, and the development of sensor elements usable to about that temperature, including assessment of how they stand up to ionising radiation. Three other approaches run in the same work package, from the University of Ljubljana, the Czech Metrology Institute and PTB, which is a fair measure of how much of this field is still open.

    Our part
    The instrument, and the practical industrial case
    Theirs
    Consortium programme, comparison against other approaches

Isotech

We first started working with Isotech in 2004, on the microK, and we have worked together on specialist precision instrumentation ever since. Metrosol carries out the research, design and development of the instruments, while Isotech develops the wider product range and brings them to market, supplying, calibrating and supporting them worldwide. Isotech acquired Metrosol on 2 April 2026.

The group relationshipIsotech temperature calibration

Research and programme highlights

World’s first practical Johnson noise thermometer, developed with NPL
Converter linearity measured against a Josephson voltage standard
Josephson-traceable
The multi-bit sigma-delta converter behind the microK was developed with NPL and Metron Designs
ThermoSI work package 2 is taking practical Johnson noise thermometry to 1,200 °C, with a target uncertainty below 3 °C
<3 °C at 1,200 °C
Initial phase part-funded by Innovate UK, civil nuclear supply chain
Presented at the European summer school on primary thermometry, Santander
13–15 May 2026

The papers behind these are on the publications page, and the awards and programme record is under awards and recognition.

Elsewhere