Thermally activated noise sources in thick film resistors of RuO2 and glass

A study on low-frequency noise sources in thick film resistors made of resistive pastes based on ruthenium dioxide and glass has been presented. The paper focuses on the excess noise spectrum dependence on temperature in the range 77 K < T < 300 K. A special technique has been invented to measure noise spectra as a function of temperature. Experimental data have been then analyzed to extract characteristic values of activation energy and time constant describing features of the measured spectra. It has been proved that the noise in RuO₂+glass thick film resistors is caused by two-states systems with thermally activated kinetics. The distribution of activation energies that govern transition in two-state systems has been determined. The maximum of the distribution energy of ~0.2 eV has been found. The final conclusion is that the mechanism coupling fluctuations of two state systems to the resistance depends on temperature weaker than exponentially