Hi Andy, How about platinum? Pt resistance temperature detectors (RTDs) are already used extensively (just Google "Pt RTD"), and I don't see any reason why you couldn't scale one down to fit on a chip. I had an idea for one of these about a year ago, but never implemented it - email me directly if you'd like to discuss it further. Best regards, Brian C. Stahl Graduate Student Researcher UCSB Materials Research Laboratory brian.stahl@gmail.com / bstahl@mrl.ucsb.edu Cell: (805) 748-5839 Office: MRL 3117A On Thu, Dec 16, 2010 at 5:13 AM, Andrew Irvinewrote: > Hi all. > > I'd like to design a chip with a very crude resistance thermometer on it > (as well as lots of things that do wildly exciting science). Using optical > lithography and thermal evaporation, and I'd connect by overlaying Cr/Au > bond pads. > > It occurs to me that someone on the list must have done it before. > > Any tips on metal system, or technical pitfalls that I should know about? > > Nichrome makes a good resistor, but has poor temperature co-efficient, > whereas Au, Al, Cu, Ag etc are horribly good conductors, but vary nicely. > I'd rather keep away from toxic or otherwise difficult metals (W, Zn, Ni, > Fe etc) as I'm giving it to students as a project. > > It can be pretty crude accuracy-wise. I'd be delighted with +/-5K at > nitrogen temps, and it's a simple two-terminal resistance measurement such > that the resistance is dominated by the thermometer. > > I'm not interested in separate sensors, just on-chip resistance. > > All tips gratefully received! > > Andy