Ambient Temperature-Gradient Compensated Low-Drift Thermopile Flow Sensor

A highly-sensitive thermal flow sensor for liquid flow with nl-min^-1 resolution has been realised. The sensor consists of freely-suspended silicon-rich silicon-nitride microchannels with integrated Al heater resistors and Al/poly-Si⁺⁺ thermopiles. The influence of drift in the thin-film metal resistors is effectively eliminated by using thermopiles combined with an adequate measurement method, where the power in the heater resistors is controlled, e.g. constant-power calorimetric method or temperature balancing method. The special meandering layout of the microchannels and the placement of thermopile junctions increases sensitivity by summing the thermopile voltages due to convection by fluid flow, whereas the influence of ambient temperature gradients is compensated for.