A very low thermal EMF computer-controlled scanner

Abstract

A very low thermal electromotive force (EMF) scanner was designed in our laboratory five years ago. The device was developed to automatically calibrate up to 12 Zener-based voltage standards by comparison to a programmable Josephson voltage standard, but can be used in any set-up that requires automation to set electrical contacts with a repeatability of the thermal EMFs at the nanovolt level. This paper explains how this device achieves robustness of metrological characteristics even after several thousand connections since its first installation. One scanner position shows a voltage offset of 60 nV with a standard deviation of 7 nV while the remaining 11 show offset values between −15 nV and +25 nV with an associated Type A uncertainty varying from 2 to 7 nV. Herein, we present the results of a series of measurements on all channels. Sub-nanovolt residual thermal short EMF variations are demonstrated using Allan variance statistical analysis.