Development of High-Temperature Fixed Points of Unknown Temperature Suitable for Key Comparisons

Abstract

During the last key comparison of local realizations of the International Temperature Scale of 1990 above the silver point, which used high stability tungsten strip lamps, it became clear that these artifacts can no longer be used to evaluate the real calibration and measuring capabilities (CMCs) of the participant laboratories. The intrinsic uncertainty of the lamps is actually larger than the claimed CMCs of most national laboratories. Ideally a set of driftless robust artifacts, preferably of unknown temperature, should be used for this purpose, as this would allow CMCs to be probed at the highest level. Currently such artifacts do not exist. High-temperature fixed points (HTFPs) have been the subject of intense study for more than 10 years. The research has come to an advanced state so much that the temperatures of some of them are well known to be within 1 K. This has rendered their use as comparison artifacts questionable as any comparison would not be blind. To address this issue, doped HTFPs have been developed which have had their transition temperature altered from that of the eutectic composition. Two Ni–C–Cu cells and two Ni–C–Sn were constructed by Inmetro with different quantities of Cu and Sn, respectively. These were compared to a reference Ni–C cell (nominal transition temperature of 1329 $^{\circ }$C) and the temperature differences from the pure state determined. In this paper the design, construction, and results of long-term stability are described. These promising results indicate that it is possible to make HTFPs with altered temperatures which are stable enough to serve as comparison artifacts.