Microfabrication of thin film temperature sensor for cryogenic measurement

In this paper, thin film Pt temperature microsensor in the temperature range of 10–100 K for cryogenic engineering applications is proposed and researched. The sensor is designed with two structures, and they are obtained by micro fabrication technology. The sensors are annealed in different conditions. The degree crystallization and grain size are analyzed by X-ray diffraction and SEM for both as-deposited and annealed sensors. The resistance dependency on temperature test result shows that when temperature is larger and smaller than 50 K, the average temperature coefficient resistance (TCR) of rectangular shape sensor could achieve 3,118 ppm/K and above 257 ppm/K, respectively. Meanwhile, TCR of circular shape sensor is 2,778 ppm/K and above 249 ppm/K, respectively. The good thermal cycle stability is observed. After three cycles between 10 and 100 K, the maximum resistance variation values are 0.0034 and 0.0137 %, which correspond to 0.0082 and 0.061 K temperature shift for the rectangular and circular sensors, respectively. The ΔT/T (%) of rectangular and circular sensors is performed with the magnetic field up to 6T in the temperature range of 10–100 K, and they are within the range of −19.84 to 0.137 and −2.18 to 11.33 for rectangular and circular sensors,respectively. The impedance test shows that the sensors have the same electric properties under direct current and alternating current condition.