Laser-modulated ac measurement of high temperature thermopower

An experimental set-up for ac-measurement of thermopower between room temperature and 1200K by using modulated laser-heating has been developed. The method shows many advantages compared with the conventional dc-measurements: convenience, applicability to small samples, possibility to measure the anisotropy of single crystals, and capability to continuously trace the temperature dependence of thermopower. The thermopower of a very short piece of pure Pt was measured with the present set-up to test the reliability and accuracy of our new method.