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The thermal conductivity of AlN and SiC thin films sputtered on silicon substrates is measured employing the 3ω method. The thickness of the AlN sample is varied in the range from 200 to 2000 nm to analyze the size effect. The SiC thin films are prepared at two different temperatures, 20 and 500 • C, and the effect of deposition temperature on thermal conductivity is examined. The results reveal that the thermal conductivity of the thin films is significantly smaller than that of the same material in bulk form. The thermal conductivity of the AlN thin film is strongly dependent on the film thickness. For the case of SiC thin films, however, increased deposition temperature results in negligible change in the thermal conductivity as the temperature is below the critical temperature for crystallization. To explain the thermal conduction in the thin films, the thermal conductivity and microstructure are compared using x-ray diffraction patterns.

One of the key components of a chemical gas sensor is a MEMS micro-heater. Micro-heaters are used in both semiconductor gas sensors and NDIR gas sensors; however they each require different heat dissipation characteristics. For the semiconductor gas sensors, a uniform temperature is required over a wide area of the heater. On the other hand, for the NDIR gas sensor, the micro-heater needs high levels of infrared radiation in order to increase sensitivity. In this study, a novel design of a poly-Si micro-heater is proposed to improve the uniformity of heat dissipation on the heating plate. Temperature uniformity of the micro-heater is achieved by compensating for the variation in power consumption around the perimeter of the heater. With the power compensated design, the uniform heating area is increased by 2.5 times and the average temperature goes up by 40 °C. Therefore, this power compensated micro-heater design is suitable for a semiconductor gas sensor. Meanwhile, the poly-Si micro-heater without compensation shows a higher level of infrared radiation under equal power consumption conditions. This indicates that the micro-heater without compensation is more suitable for a NDIR gas sensor. Furthermore, the micro-heater shows a short response time of less than 20ms, indicating a very high efficiency of pulse driving.