Investigations on the structure, composition and performance of nanocrystalline thin film thermocouples deposited using anodic vacuum arc

This paper deals with the performance study of nanocrystalline thin film thermocouples (TFTCs) fabricated using anodic vacuum arc plasma aided deposition technique. Various single junction single elemental metal-metal pairs, elemental metal-metal alloy pairs, and metal alloy-metal alloy pairs were developed on glass substrates Elemental metal films were annealed at 10− 4 Pa for 4 h while metal alloy films were annealed for 5 h. Their thermoelectric response has been studied in ambient air up to a maximum temperature difference of 300 °C between hot junction and cold junction. The phase purity, microstructure and composition of individual layer films were extensively studied. Elemental metal pairs agree well with their wire thermocouple equivalents. Thermoelectric power (TEP) of Cu-Ni and Fe-Ni TFTCs were found to be 17.81 μV/°C and 27.94 μV/°C at 300 °C, respectively. Among metal alloy-metal alloy TFTCs, a TEP of 32.87 μV/°C at 300 °C was obtained for Chromel-Alumel TFTCs which agree fairly well with its wire counterpart. However, Constantan based TFTCs deviated considerably from their wire counterparts. Cu-Constantan, Fe-Constantan and Chromel-Constantan showed a TEP of 26.48 μV/°C, 35.76 μV/°C and 37.41 μV/°C at 300 °C respectively. This deviation in thermoelectric power of Constantan based TFTCs with their wire counterparts were due to the fractionation of the Constantan arm. This fractionation leads to decrease of Ni content in the film which in turn reduces their TEP.