A 10 µH Inductance Standard in PCB Technology with Enhanced Protection against Magnetic Fields

Abstract

Low-frequency working standards of inductance are generally uniformly wound toroids on a ceramic core. Planar inductors made using printed circuit board (PCB) technology are simple and cheap to manufacture in comparison to inductors wound on toroid cores, but they are significantly prone to the influence of external magnetic fields. In this paper, we propose the design of a PCB inductance working standard of 10 μH, consisting of a duplex system of planar PCB coils, electrostatic shielding, and an enclosure. Alongside an electromagnetic analysis and design procedure, the measurements on the manufactured prototype included the generated magnetic field, the thermal time constant of the enclosure, temperature coefficients, and its error analysis. The measurements show negligible generated magnetic fields (<1.68 nT at 7 cm, 49 mA, 10 kHz). The minimum thermal time constant of the enclosure is 1270 s and the temperature coefficient of resistance is 0.00384 1/℃. The presented method of temperature coefficient measurement using a climate chamber allows for measurements in the temperature range of 10 °C to 40 °C. In this temperature range, the results show an inductance variation of 0.05 µH at 50 kHz, while the uncertainty of inductance measurement at this frequency was 0.03 µH (k = 2).