Low temperature micro-calorimeters based on thick film resistors

In the contribution we describe the design and some characteristics of micro-calorimeters which contain temperature sensors based on thick film RuO/sub 2/ resistors and heaters made of Ag-Pd thick films. The calorimeters were prepared using screen printing technique on sapphire substrates, and are assigned for specific heat measurements of very small samples in temperature ranges 0.05-3 K and 1.5-15 K. Described are also the relaxation and dual-slope methods which are used to determine the heat capacity.