Preparation and thermal volatility characteristics of In2O3/ITO thin film thermocouple by RF magnetron sputtering

• Main Authors: Yantao Liu, Wei Ren, Peng Shi, Dan Liu, Ming Liu, Weixuan Jing, Bian Tian, Zuoguang Ye, Zhuangde Jiang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: AIP Publishing LLC 2017-11-01
• Series: AIP Advances
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4999246

In2O3/ITO thin film thermocouples for high temperature measurement (up to 1250 °C) were prepared by radio frequency magnetron sputtering method with different annealing temperatures from 1100 °C to 1250 °C. The changes with microstructure characteristics and the thickness of the thin film thermocouples were investigated as a function of sintering temperature in the range of 1100 °C -1250 °C and annealing time from 2 hrs to 10 hrs at 1200 °C by using XRD and SEM techniques. The thermoelectric output was measured and its results indicated that this thermocouple had a steady and constant voltage output from room temperature to 1247 oC. The thermoelectric voltage and Seebeck coefficient of In2O3/ITO thermocouples measured at 1247 oC were 166.7 mV and 136.3 μV/oC, respectively.