Detection System Of Micro-area Contact Resistance Of Thermoelectric Devices Based On LabVIEW

Due to the urgent demand for clean energy of the society,thermoelectric power generation technology has attracted more and more attention and the application of thermoelectric devices has been promoted unceasingly.There has been increasingly higher demand for contact resistance between metal electrodes and semiconductor material.At present,before getting a breakthrough in semiconductor materials of thermoelectric devices,its performance can be optimized to upgrade the efficiency of thermoelectric power conversion by improving the internal material structure and the production process.So far,most studies of the contact resistance just focus on the resistance value.However,research on the resistance change trend and the change rule of the small contact area is far from enough,which is unable to provide theoretical support for improving production process.Thus,tests on small area contact resistance and analysis of its change rule have vital significance.In this paper,theoretical and experimental research on the contact resistance test of micro thermoelectric devices area has been carried out.Firstly,it analyzes the traditional measuring method of contact resistance,on the basis of which the theoretical model of the system has been put forward.According to the characteristics of the system measuring object,at the same time,considering the economic factors,suitable hardware circuit for this system has been designed and corresponding lower machine software has been developed.Secondly,based on the LabVIEW software development platform,system to test the micro area contact resistance for human-computer interaction has been carried out and developed.The system is able to realize the precise control of the stepper motor and drive the probe to get point on the surface of thermoelectric devices continuously,thereby to gain micro zone distribution and change rule of the contact resistance.Moreover,according to the actual need,the measurement step can be adjusted.Corresponding historical data can be stored after the measurement.It possess various advantages such as wide applicable scope,high reliability,low economic cost and so on.The experimental verification shows that the testing system has high detection accuracy and its utmost measuring error is 0.394%.It can realize micro area measuring of contact resistance and get the contact resistance distribution with the minimum measured step of 1 microns.This system possess high stability and is able to store test data of different samples for the comparative analysis of later experiment.Step length can be adjusted according to actual condition to reduce the measuring time.With the application of the test system,test of the contact resistance trend can be lifted to micron level area.To sum up,based on LabVIEW,the micro area contact resistance test system of the thermoelectric devices has certain feasibility in terms of technical analysis and practical application.The studies in this paper play an important role on the analysis of the contact resistance changing trend of micro area,and also has a good guiding significance to the thermoelectric devices manufacture and life testing.