Abstract
Thermal voltage converters have been widely used in the electric standard field as a major method to derive AC voltage standards from DC voltage standards. However, there are only a limited number of organizations that are capable of fabricating thermal voltage converters. Furthermore, establishing AC-DC voltage standards has been constrained by the lack of high-quality thermal converters. High-quality thermal converters are used only by national metrology institutes (NMIs) because the conventional thermal converters are too fragile for many calibration laboratories. The National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) has developed new thin-film multi-junction thermal converters(TFMJTCs) to realize a reliable high-performance thermal converter. Development of a durable TFMJTC with a heater on an aluminum nitride (AlN) substrate is expected to make significant contribution to Japanese calibration laboratories.
