Two Ways of Power Substitution for calibrating Thermoelectric Sensors at RF and Microwaves

Luciano Brunetti, Luca Oberto, Marco Sellone

Abstract

Thermoelectric sensors reached a dominant application in the commercial power meters at Radio Frequency (RF) and Microwaves (MW), by virtue of their superior robustness, stability and accuracy if compared with other types of power sensors. Furthermore, their performances reveal to be very useful in the realization of broadband primary power standards as a valid alternative to the resistive sensors, i.e. bolometers, in coaxial transmission line, at least. Recent technological improvements allow thermoelectric sensor calibration following two circuital schemes. In simple words, sensors have been fitted with auxiliary absorbers to which direct current (dc) reference power can be supplied as an alternative to their main RF/MW absorber. Hereby, we present a comparison in term of effective efficiency of a thermoelectric sensor that is calibrated with the calorimetric technique and by using the two possibilities of power substitution. The aim is to verify to what extent the two calibration ways can be considered equivalent.

Keywords

Microwaves, power standards, power substitution, microcalorimeter, thermoelectric sensors.

Download

IMEKO-TC4-2016-09.pdf

DOI

-

IMEKO TC

TC4 - Measurement of Electrical Quantities

Back to the proceedings