pp. 83-90
S&M632 Research Paper Published: 2006 Improvement of Thin-Film Multijunction Thermal Converters at KRISS [PDF] Young Hwa Lee, Young Eon Ihm, Sung Won Kwon, Kook Jin Kim and Se Il Park (Received September 22, 2005; Accepted April 3, 2006) Keywords: multijunction thermal converter (MJTC), thermoelectric effect, voltage sensitivity, ac-dc transfer difference
Thin-film multijunction thermal converters (MJTCs) were fabricated using silicon semiconductor production and bulk micromachining. The converters consisted of a bifilar heater and thermocouple hot junctions on the Si3N4/SiO2/Si3N4 membrane and cold junctions supported by the silicon frame. The voltage sensitivity of the converter was 21.41 V/ W in vacuum, which is higher than 5.82 V/W in air. In the case of a 500-nm-thick heater, the ac-dc transfer differences taken at 1 V and 40 Hz were 42.1 ppm in air and 11.8 ppm in vacuum. The ac-dc transfer differences were stabilized below 1 ppm in the frequency range from 1 kHz to 500 kHz. A process of fabricating advanced converters with a thermal island under the heater to decrease ac-dc transfer difference at low frequencies was developed. In the case of the converter, the transfer difference was about 2.9 ppm at 1.0 V and 40 Hz.
Corresponding author: Se Il ParkCite this article Young Hwa Lee, Young Eon Ihm, Sung Won Kwon, Kook Jin Kim and Se Il Park, Improvement of Thin-Film Multijunction Thermal Converters at KRISS, Sens. Mater., Vol. 18, No. 2, 2006, p. 83-90. |