TY - JOUR N2 - This paper presents the design, fabrication and testing of an improved thin-film thermal converter based on an electro-thermally excited and piezo-resistively detected micro-bridge resonator. The resonant thermal converter comprises a bifilar heater and an opposing micro-bridge resonator. When the micro-bridge resonator absorbs the radiant heat from the heater, its axial strain changes, then its resonant frequency follows. Therefore the alternating voltage or current can be transferred to the equivalent DC quantity. A non-contact temperature sensing mechanism eliminates heat loss from thermopiles and reduces coupling capacitance between the temperature sensor and the heater compared with traditional thin-film thermal converters based on thermopiles. In addition, the quasi-digital output of the resonant thin-film thermal converter eliminates such problems as intensity fluctuations associated with analogue signals output by traditional thin-film thermal converters. Using the fast-reversed DC (FRDC) method, the thermoelectric transfer difference, which determines the frequency-independent part of the ac-dc transfer difference, is evaluated to be as low as 1.1 · 10−6. It indicates that the non-contact temperature sensing mechanism is a feasible method to develop a high-performance thermal converter. L1 - http://www.journals.pan.pl/Content/108932/PDF/art_06.pdf L2 - http://www.journals.pan.pl/Content/108932 PY - 2018 IS - No 4 EP - 725 DO - 10.24425/mms.2018.124882 KW - thermoelectric transfer difference KW - micro-bridge resonator KW - thermal converter KW - bifilar heater A1 - Dong, Lizhen A1 - Han, Jianqiang A1 - Zhang, Peng A1 - Zhao, Zhengqian A1 - Cheng, Bing A1 - Han, Dong PB - Polish Academy of Sciences Committee on Metrology and Scientific Instrumentation VL - vol. 25 DA - 2018.12.14 T1 - An improved resonant thermal converter based on micro-bridge resonator SP - 715 UR - http://www.journals.pan.pl/dlibra/publication/edition/108932 T2 - Metrology and Measurement Systems ER -