CVD-diamond-based thermocouple for high sensitive temperature measurements

Abstract

The possibility to realize a high sensitive thermocouple by means of boron doped chemical vapour deposition (CVD) diamond was investigated. The thermoelectric power of p-type diamond, grown by plasma enhanced CVD was studied for films of electrical resistivity in the 0.2–40 Ω cm range in order to asses the dependence of thermocouple sensitivity on the doping level. The p-type diamond films were prepared by CH3OH + B2O3 vapour addition to a 1% CH4–H2 gas mixture during the growth. The conductive films were then tested tracing the I–V characteristic in order to study the conduction properties of the films. An appropriate experimental setup was built to evaluate the thermoelectric properties of the grown samples for different temperatures imposed between two ends of the samples. Firstly, the output voltage was measured maintaining a reference temperature of 273 K at one end and varying the second temperature between 275.5 and 360.5 K. A constant value of the temperature drop of 5 K was then used for an accurate evaluation of the thermoelectric properties of the diamond films for different value of the average temperature. The measurements provided values of thermoelectric power in the range 0.3–0.6 mV/K while conductivity increases. These values showed different decreasing behaviour with increasing temperature for different resistivity of the sample. In particular, more relevant changes in thermoelectric power were measured for high resistive samples.