EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE:             Jennie Covahey
Sept. 22, 1994                     (301) 975-4158

                                   TN-5987

           LOW-COST, THIN-FILM MULTIJUNCTION THERMAL CONVERTER

                          WINS 1994 R&D 100 AWARD

     A multilayer, thin-film multijunction thermal converter, or
MJTC, developed jointly by the National Institute of Standards
and Technology and Ballantine Laboratories Inc. of Cedar Knolls,
N.J., has been named one of the "100 most technologically
significant new products of the year" by Research and Development
magazine.

     The result of a cooperative research and development
agreement between the two organizations, this approach to the
fabrication of thermal converters permits mass production of a
previously difficult-to-make, hand-made device, with a subsequent
reduction in price.

     The developers, Joseph Kinard and Donald Novotny of NIST's
Electronics and Electrical Engineering Laboratory, along with
De-Xiang Huang of Ballantine Laboratories, will be honored at the
32nd annual R&D 100 Awards Banquet on Thursday, Sept. 22 at
Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry.

     Thermal converters, which are the most accurate calibration
standards for ac voltage and current, also produce the most
precise measurement method for both.  According to the
developers, conventional thermal converters contain a heater
resistor, usually wire, and a temperature sensor, usually a wire
thermocouple.  Wire MJTCs, containing many thermocouples, are
used as primary and working standards in the national calibration
laboratories of all the major industrialized nations.

     The new multilayer, thin-film MJTCs were developed to
provide more accurate primary standards of ac-dc difference than
were previously obtainable and to permit more accurate
instrumentation for ac voltage and current measurements.

     "The novel fabrication technology and thin-film, low-stress
construction of these MJTCs permit operation at cryogenic
temperatures where thermoelectric errors are lower," says Kinard. 

     By bringing high-performance thermal transfer
instrumentation to the general measurement and calibration
community, the new converters may enable widespread reduction of
uncertainty in ac voltage calibration.  They may also allow
high-accuracy voltage and current measurements from below audio
frequency to 100 megahertz.  The new thin-film MJTC technology
may have further applications in vacuum, flow and other
measurement areas.

     Research and Development magazine annually honors inventors
and scientists around the world by selecting the 100 most
technologically significant new products of the past year.
Recipients are selected on the basis of their invention's
importance, uniqueness and usefulness from a technical standpoint
by the magazine's editors and a panel of technical experts. Since
1973, NIST researchers have won a total of 76 R&D 100 awards.

     An agency of the Commerce Department's Technology
Administration, NIST promotes economic growth by working with
industry to develop and apply technology, measurements and
standards.

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