Fabrication of Thermoelectric Sensor Using Silicon-on-Insulator Structure

In this paper, we present a thermally measurable contact and noncontact-type thermoelectric sensor using a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) structure, because single-crystal silicon has a higher Seebeck coefficient than any other thermoelectric material. The sensor was designed to have 17 pairs of n- and p-type single-crystal silicon strips and a selective absorption area (SAA) that consists of aluminum and silicon dioxide. The thermoelectric sensor based on the SOI structure was fabricated and measured using a complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) process. The measured sensitivity of the sensor was 0.19 mV/°C, when human skin directly touched the sensor surface. In the noncontact measurement of the sensor while varying the distance between the lamp (EFD10EL/8, NEC) and the sensor, the maximum electromotive force (EMF) of the sensor was -1.55 mV at a 2 mm (6.09 mW) distance.