Proposal of a Super-Symmetric Microcalorimeter for Single Step Realization of RF Primary Power Standard

Abstract

The realization of RF primary power standards by means of microcalorimeter technique requires huge measurement times because the necessity of performing in completely separated steps the standard measurement and the system calibration. This procedure is very detrimental for the final measurement accuracy, therefore, in the paper, a new design is proposed of broadband microcalorimeter, which with an improved hardware and convenient new algorithms allows a self-calibration of the system without dismounting/mounting operation. A four times shorter measurement time, without accuracy loss, together with the improvements of the thermal noise rejection and in the measured data correlation, are the most significant results obtainable.