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A Handy Flexible Micro-Thermocouple Using Low-Melting-Point Metal Alloys
Qifu Wang1,2, Meng Gao3, Lunjia Zhang4,5
1CAS Key Laboratory of Cryogenics, Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China. wangqifu16@mails.ucas.ac.cn.
Abstract:
A handy, flexible micro-thermocouple using low-melting-point metal alloys is proposed in this paper. The thermocouple has the advantages of simple fabrication and convenient integration. Bismuth/gallium-based mixed alloys are used as thermocouple materials. To precisely inject the metal alloys to the location of the sensing area, a micro-polydimethylsiloxane post is designed within the sensing area to prevent outflow of the metal alloy to another thermocouple pole during the metal-alloy injection. Experimental results showed that the Seebeck coefficient of this thermocouple reached -10.54 μV/K, which was much higher than the previously reported 0.1 μV/K. The thermocouple was also be bent at 90° more than 200 times without any damage when the mass ratio of the bismuth-based alloy was <60% in the metal-alloy mixture. This technology mitigated the difficulty of depositing traditional thin⁻film thermocouples on soft substrates. Therefore, the thermocouple demonstrated its potential for use in microfluidic chips, which are usually flexible devices.
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