New design of a microcalorimeter for measuring absolute heat capacity from 300 to 550Â K

We report development of a new type of a microcalorimeter based on an amorphous membrane composed of Si:N and SiO2 layers, which holds an isothermal Au film of a disc shape and concentric Pt leads as a heater and a thermal sensor. Two-dimensional thermal simulation was used to confirm that the layout of the isothermal platform and metallic leads result in nearly perfect isothermal conditions at temperatures from 20 to 600 K. Moreover, by placing the insulating SiO2 layer between the isothermal film and metallic leads, we could locate all electrical and thermal components in the top side of the membrane, allowing the micro-fabrication easy and cost-effective. The micro-fabrication method produces a total of 49 devices in a four inch Si wafer and can be also applied in a larger wafer size. Heat capacity value of the isothermal platform was found to be as small as ∼6 μJ K−1 at room temperature. Upon applying the lumped-τ2 model in the measurement scheme, we found that specific heat of an Al2O3 single crystal (NIST standard, ∼0.2 mg) was consistent with the literature value within ∼3% at temperatures between 300 and 550 K. Our results show that the circular layout of the isothermal platform with better heat confinement is useful for increasing the accuracy of measured heat capacity if the other parameters such as thickness and thermal conductivity of each layer in the membrane are fixed.