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Traceable RF Power Metering Procedures With Thermoelectric Sensors
Published
Author(s)
Zenn Roberts, Aaron Hagerstrom, Cole Gray, Angela Stelson, Vincent Neylon, Christian Long
Abstract
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) maintains the United State's primary standards for traceable RF and mm-wave power measurements. These measurements require special sensors that carry no active electronics, and that have operating principles and measurement uncertainties that are amenable to simple models. Currently, the primary standards in the 2.4 mm connector type are power sensors that use temperature-dependent platinum thin-film resistors as a power sensing element. These sensors are not commercially available, which raises concerns about the sustainability of traceability based on these sensors. These concerns motivated us to explore the option of using thermoelectric power sensors. In this paper, we describe a power metering procedure, and a preliminary uncertainty analysis for a power sensor that could be used for traceable measurements. With our metering procedure, we see good linearity up to about 17 mW, weak temperature dependence, and an overall fractional measurement uncertainty of about 0.15% (k = 1).
Roberts, Z.
, Hagerstrom, A.
, Gray, C.
, Stelson, A.
, Neylon, V.
and Long, C.
(2024),
Traceable RF Power Metering Procedures With Thermoelectric Sensors, 103rd ARFTG Microwave Measurement Conference, Washington DC, DC, US, [online], https://doi.org/10.1109/ARFTG61196.2024.10661070, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=957634
(Accessed October 20, 2025)