(位移传感器专业英语）thermoelectric effect.doc

The?Seebeck effect?is the conversion of?temperature?differences directly into?electricity?and is named for German-Estonian physicistThomas Johann Seebeck, who, in 1821 discovered that a compass needle would be deflected by a closed loop formed by two metals joined in two places, with a temperature difference between the junctions. This was because the metals responded differently to the temperature difference, creating a current loop and a?magnetic field. Seebeck did not recognize there was an electric current involved, so he called the phenomenon the thermomagnetic effect. Danish physicist?Hans Christian ?rsted?rectified the mistake and coined the term thermoelectricity. The voltage created by this effect is of the order of several?microvolts?per?kelvin?difference. One such combination, copper-constantan, has a Seebeck coefficient of 41 microvolts per kelvin at room temperature.[2] The voltage?V?developed can be derived from: where?SA?and?SB?are the?thermopowers?(Seebeck coefficient) of metals A and B as a function of temperature and?T1?and?T2?are the temperatures of the two junctions. The Seebeck coefficients are non-linear as a function of temperature, and depend on the conductors absolute temperature, material, and molecular structure. If the Seebeck coefficients are effectively constant for the measured temperature range, the above formula can be approximated as: The Seebeck effect is used in the?thermocouple?to measure a temperature difference; absolute temperature may be found by setting one end to a known temperature. A metal of unknown composition can be classified by its thermoelectric effect if a metallic probe of known composition, kept at a constant temperature, and is held in contact with it. Industrial quality control instruments use this as thermoelectric alloy sorting to identify metal alloys. Thermocouples in series form a?thermopile, sometimes constructed in order to increase the output voltage, since the voltage induced over each individual coupl