An electrical characterization system design

Abstract

In this work, the design, of an electrical characterization system is presented to obtain the surface resistivity (ranging from 1Ω to 1 GΩ) or conductivity of different thin films, thick films and pellets in a very precise manner. The surface resistivity changes are measured at different temperatures ranging from room temperature to 300 0C, which allows to test for all organic and inorganic materials. Gas sensitivity (change in surface resistance with respect to gas) of SnO2 pellets are measured; higher sensitivities (~ 25) with faster sensing response (~45 s) for a very low gas concentrations (~ 2 ppm to 2000 ppm) are easily achieved in a cost-effective way by enjoining a basic flow meter with reduced sensing chamber volume (500 mL). The GPIB interface made the data acquisition of the samples for very small-time intervals (~ 50 ms), which resulted in obtaining both static and dynamic sensor characteristic plots. The assembled system in this work is a portable, cost effective and miniaturized instrument which can be utilized for obtaining gas sensing properties as well as the I-V hysteresis curves for testing various samples as memristors