Chapter1: Thermal Sensors

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Thermal Sensors
 Measuring the Temperature
 Thermoelectric Effect (Seebeck Effect)
 Thermoresistive Effect
 Pyroelectric Effect
 Radiation Thermometer
 Static Modeling of Thermal Transport and Understanding Sensitivity
 Modeling Dynamic Behavior
 The Noise of the Thermopile
 Sensor Electronics: Building the System
 The Alternatives: Pyroelectric Sensor and Bolometer
 A Topical Application Example: Infrared Gas Sensing of Ethylene
 Excursus to Wireless Sensor Networks

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Measuring the Temperature
 Classical methods use the thermal expansion of materials.
 Liquid thermometer: A glass capillary is filled with a little amount of fluid.
When temperature increases, the liquid expands. Standard liquids are mercury
or alcohol.
 Bimetal thermometer: It is made from two bonded sheet metals. When
temperature increases, the different coefficient of thermal expansion will
generate a thermo-mechanical stress. The resulting bending is a measure for
the temperature.
 Gas thermometer: When an ideal gas is heated and volume is kept constant,
the pressure increases.
 For sensors, we need an effect that converts the temperature into an electric
signal. Thus, these three effects are used,
• Thermoelectric effect
• Thermoresistive effect
• Pyroelectric effect
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Thermoelectric Effect
 In 1821, Thomas Johann Seebeck found that electric power
can be generated by an arrangement of two metals.
 Two lines of metals A (copper) and B (iron) joined together.
 Continuous current flows in the circuit.
 If one end is of copper-iron and other of iron-copper then
voltage between two copper lines U is
thermoelectric/seebeck voltage.
 Assuming voltage is generated at the joining points and we
split into two contact voltages, UAB and UBA.
U = UAB + UBA = kABT1 + kBAT2
 Operated over the linear region
 If T1 = T2, the voltage is zero, so kAB = -kBA
U = kAB (T1 - T2)
• Where, kAB = thermoelectric/Seebeck coefficient

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 Thermoelectric Effect
 Introduce third metal R in between metals A and B
U = UAB + UBR + URA = kABT1 + kBRT2 + kRAT3
 For T1 = T2 = T3,
kAB + kBR + kRA = 0
kAB = kAR – kBR

 Using the above findings, thermoelectric voltages

series table 1.1 is formed.
 Platinum is used as the reference metal.
 9 experiments are done measuring every metal versus
platinum

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Thermoelectric Effect
 Zero temperature difference makes zero voltage.
 Consequence of the law of the conservation of energy.
 Maintaining a temperature difference between the two
junctions will result in the heat flow. Resulting in an
energy flow in the system.
 A Little part of this energy is converted into electric
energy known as thermoelectricity.
 Whereas, it works the other way round too, where if
the current is driven through the deployment. One of
the junction heats up while the other cools down. This
effect is known as the Peltier effect. Used for cooling
small items.

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Thermoelectric Effect
Explanation of the thermoelectric effect between two metals
A and B.
Left: metals not in contact;
Right: metals in contact, and charge carriers can be
exchanged between A and B.

 The two separate metals have a temperature, and hence

there is thermal movement. Therefore, some charge
carriers move above the Fermi level, making an electron
cloud.
 When the two metals make contact the electron cloud
move from higher Fermi level (B) to lower Fermi level (A)
in an attempt to equalize the temperature.
 The movement of electrons from B to A results in the
buildup of a voltage potential between the two junctions.
This voltage is known as the thermoelectric voltage or
Seebeck voltage.
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Thermoresistive Effect
 Thermoresistive Effect: It is the phenomenon where the electrical
resistance of a material changes with variations in temperature. This effect
is commonly observed in a variety of materials, including metals,
semiconductors, and insulators. The change in resistance is typically
characterized by the temperature coefficient of resistance (TCR), which
quantifies how much the resistance of a material changes per degree of
temperature change.
 There are two main types of Thermoresistive effects:
1) Positive Temperature Coefficient
2) Negative Temperature Coefficient
 The resistivity of a material is a function of temperature:
R = R0 (1 +  T + β + . . . )
  is the temperature coefficient of resistance
 β is the quadratic coefficient.

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Thermoresistive Effect
 Positive Temperature Coefficient (PTC):
 The materials whose resistance increases with an increase in temperature ( > 0) are
called PTC materials. It is found in ceramics material having  = 100%/K
 Typical values for metals are in the range of 0.4–0.8%/K
 Platinum:  = 3.8 x /K; β = 0.6 x /
 Nickel:  = 6.7 x /K; β = 9 x /
 PTC materials are used as temperature switches and for securing electronic circuits
against overcurrent.

 Negative Temperature Coefficient (NTC):

 The materials whose resistance decreases as the temperature rises (  < 0) are called
NTC materials.
 This effect is commonly found in metals, metal oxides, and low doped semiconductor
materials.
 NTC materials are employed in temperature sensors and thermistors (thermally
sensitive resistors). They are known for their high sensitivity to temperature changes,
making them suitable for precise temperature measurements.
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Pyroelectric Effect
 Some dielectric materials have a natural dipole moment (like a permanent magnet
has a natural magnetization).
 Piezoelectric effect: When mechanical stress is applied on a material, it causes
separation of positive and negative charges and which result in the generation of an
electric potential.
 Pyroelectric Effect: When the temperature of the material changes, it changes the
alignment of electric dipoles, resulting in the generation of an electric charge.

 The table 1.2 sums up the effects to measure temperature.

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 Radiation Thermometer
 Infrared sensors are used for non-contact
temperature measurement.
 When a body is hot, it emits infrared
radiation (IR, “heat radiation”). A pyrometer
measures the IR to calculate the
temperature.
PIR = const . A . ЄR .
Where, power PIR according to the area A,
Emissivity εR, and absolute temperature T.

 When temperature increases, two things

happen: first, the infrared radiation power
increases with a power of 4 of the
temperature. Then, the emitted radiation
shifts to a shorter wavelength.
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Static Modeling of Thermal Transport and
Understanding Sensitivity
 There are n lines from polysilicon and n lines from metal. Heat conduction
through all the interconnects is:
Pcond =-n (kSi + kM)ΔT
 The thermal conductivity of silicon nitride is 2.5 W/mK, very low compared
to the conductivity of polysilicon (150 W/mK) and aluminum (230 W/mK).
Hence, we conclude that the energy flow through the membrane is much
lower than the energy flow through the interconnects.
 Wall heat transfer is the convective transport of energy from the
membrane to the surrounding gas.
Pconv =-2  AΔT
 The factor 2 reflects the fact that the membrane has two sides.
  is the wall heat transfer coefficient (For small membranes 100 W/K).

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Modeling Dynamic Behavior
The membrane is heated up, but it needs some time to
reach the new equilibrium. Solving

 This equation has time-dependent and time-

independent terms. Therefore, the time-dependent
parts must be equal and the time-independent parts
must also be equal.
1) Pin = K Δ T0
2) τ=

 (1) sensitivity in the steady state depends only on the

conductivity K.
 (2) describes the thermal time constant τ as the ratio of
the thermal capacity C to the thermal conductivity K.

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The Noise of the Thermopile
The noise of the thermopile is thermal noise from the
resistivity of the sensor.
All particles, such as atoms and electrons always show a
small thermal movement. The higher the temperature,
the larger is the thermal movement.
Moving charges make an electric current, so there will be
a noise current. Nyquist proposed to consider noise
current as a superposition of vibrations in the resistor.
Each vibrations will have an average thermal energy:

where, kB is the Boltzmann constant.

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The Alternatives: Pyroelectric Sensor and Bolometer
 Pyroelectric effect gives a signal when the temperature of the material is changed.
 To build the pyroelectric sensor, we just use a small piece of crystal such as lithium
tantalate (LiTaO3) to realize a small measurement spot.
 We apply a metal pad on it and contact it with a thin bond wire.
 To achieve thermal isolation, we mount the crystals on small plastic pillars. The
crystal will give us a voltage as output signal caused by a very small charge on the
surface.
 This means that we have to measure high entrance impedance, which can be done
using an op-amp directly at the side of the sensor, which is used as a charge
amplifier.
 When the system is at high temperature, the response will be different even for
identical IR power input.
 To compensate this, we apply a second identical crystal 2, connected antiparallel to
crystal 1. While crystal 1 is covered with an IR-absorbing layer, crystal 2 is plated
with gold to reject the IR power.
 Bolometer technology is simple, with only one metal layer and after applying a small
resistor, thermal noise becomes small.

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The Alternatives: Pyroelectric Sensor and Bolometer

Figure 1.16 Pyroelectric sensor for thermal radiation. Two pyroelectric crystals are
placed, one to sense and the other for temperature compensation.

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A Topical Application Example: Infrared Gas Sensing of
Ethylene
 Ethylene absorbs infrared light at 9 μm due to vibration of the atoms in the
ethylene molecule. Therefore, we can use infrared sensors (thermopiles or
pyroelectric sensors) to measure concentration of ethylene.
 Figure below shows the measurement system. IR is emitted from a thermal light
source, such as a hot wire or a hot membrane. It passes through a cuvette filled
with the air containing traces of ethylene. At the end of the optical path, there is a
small band optical bandpass filter for 9 μm wavelength and a thermopile detector.
 The figure below is Non-dispersive infrared spectrometer (NDIR) for gas analysis.

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A Topical Application Example: Infrared Gas Sensing of
Ethylene
 We can reduce the thermal noise by synchronous demodulation using the lock-in
principle.
 As we need to measure ethylene in low concentration so we chop light source at 10 Hz
so, we analyze only the signal modulated at 9.5 Hz to 10.5 Hz which will filter almost all
thermal noise.
 The Oscillator will modulate the light source with W0.
 The same oscillator is then multiplied with thermopile signal.
 The product is passed through LPF with WLP.

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Excursus to Wireless Sensor Networks
We want to get temperature and other measurement
data from many places, but we do not want to deploy
kilometers of copper wire. Then, a wireless sensor net is
the solution.
Two strategies to make a sensor wireless:
1. Transmitting data and energy by the electromagnetic
field using RFID technology. But it has a restricted
range.
2. A sensor node that is powered by a battery and
communicates by radio.

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Commercial sensor node for temperature and humidity
measurement by ambient systems. The sensor node
transmits at 2.4 GHz. With one battery, it can work for
about 6 months.

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