Nickel thin film thermoresistors offer a sensitive way of making accurate surface temperature measurements. When a meandering path is used to achieve large values for film resistance, the path need to be patterned by photolotographic technique and strong film adhesion must be assured. In this work the presence of a thin underlayer adhesive film was avoided by the use of the ion-plating deposition technique which provides an excellent adhesion. The fabrication and electrical properties of ion-plated nickel thin film sensors with thicknesses above 1000 A are described. The adhesion of the films was examined by means of the scratch test. After a post-deposition annealing the films were stable and the TCR was reproducible. For comparison, results for vacuum evaporated films of the same thickness are presented.
