Company Blog

Interdigitated Electrode Sensors for Liquid Measurements

16.06.2021

Fig.1

In previous blog posts, we demonstrated conductivity and permittivity measurements of liquids using the MFIA Impedance Analyzer. To reach the best accuracy, the measurements were carried out using immersion probes or dielectric fixtures with a precisely defined electrode area and spacing. This step is important as any error in the...

Impedance Measurements with Small Amplitude Test Signals

03.06.2021

Scope showing bit resolution

When taking an impedance measurement, the test signal amplitude can often be a factor that needs to be minimized to avoid unnecessarily disturbing the sample under test. This blog post presents measurements showing how even small test signals of just 500 nV can be used to take a reliable impedance...

Taking Dielectric Measurements to the Liquid State

25.05.2021

The MFIA Impedance Analyzer is connected to a third-party liquid dielectric test fixture

Liquid dielectrics are dielectric materials in a liquid state and are widely used in electrical insulation as well as cooling. Nonetheless, their fluidity also makes accurate dielectric measurements a challenge. In a previous blog post , we saw how to measure solid-state materials with the MFIA Impedance Analyzer and a...

Configuring the DAQ Module for Image Acquisition

25.05.2021

Imaging Example

Data synchronization is the key to acquiring images, and in this blog post I explain how to configure the LabOne^® Data Acquisition (DAQ) module for this purpose. Let's start with two concrete scanning microscopy examples...

Optimizing the SNR of Laser-Scanning Microscopes with Lock-in Amplifiers

25.05.2021

Laser Scanning

Improving the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is desirable for every laser-scanning microscopy application. It enables the observation of smaller changes or faster processes in a sample. This blog post explains how using a lock-in amplifier or a boxcar averager can boost the SNR compared to using a digitizer only. Furthermore, I...

Randomized Benchmarking in Seconds

20.05.2021

Random Benchmarking Sequence

Randomized benchmarking (RB) is a widely used tool in quantum information science to determine qubit fidelity and to characterize individual qubit gates. It is also an excellent example of a quantum experiment with advanced requirements on the control hardware and software. For an RB experiment, we apply random sequences of...

The Next Generation of Signal Generators - SHFSG Launch Event

05.05.2021

SHFSG Launch Event

On April 29th, Jan Benhelm, Mark Kasperczyk and I welcomed a crowd of customers to the interactive online event introducing Zurich Instruments’ newest product, the SHFSG Signal Generator. Our aim was to present multiple perspectives on the launch of this powerful instrument. Jan provided an overview of Zurich Instruments’ quantum...

Comparison of Liquid Conductivity Probes

29.04.2021

EIS Probe

In a previous blog post , we described how to use the MFIA Impedance Analyzer to measure the electrochemical impedance spectrum (EIS) of a liquid sample and to derive the conductivity with EIS modeling. The post presented a 5-element equivalent circuit model, which required a relatively deep understanding of electrochemistry...

Customized Output Data Format for Impedance Sweeps

16.04.2021

Data Format

This short blog post shows you how to customize the exported data of your impedance sweeps on the MFIA and MFLI with MF-IA option. The Sweeper module of LabOne^® is an excellent tool to sweep frequency, amplitude or bias offset, and measure multiple parameters as a function of the swept parameter.

Capturing Transients with the Zurich Instruments Toolkit

07.04.2021

MFIA configuration

In many applications, Zurich Instruments' lock-in amplifiers and impedance analyzers are integrated into a larger measurement system. Relying on an application programming interface (API) to obtain necessary information from the instruments is of great importance in such cases...

Fast Electrical Impedance Spectroscopy for Characterization and Counting - Q&A

23.03.2021

Meng Li, Bruno Charlety

This blog post summarizes the webinar that Fluigent and Zurich Instruments presented together on our solution for fast electric impedance spectroscopy (EIS) in microfluidics. The system consisted of an HF2LI Lock-in Amplifier from Zurich Instruments and the LineUp series microfluidic flow controllers from Fluigent. We covered the working principle of...

Come Effettuare Misure DLTS con lo MFIA

18.03.2021

Voltage and Capacitance in Plotter

Questo articolo illustra come produrre un'onda quadra in tensione ed acquisire i conseguenti transitori di capacità, in una scala temporale molto corta (ad esempio 20 us), per effettuare misure di tipo "deep level transient spectroscopy" (DLTS). DLTS è una tecnica potente e comunemente usata per investigare sia la concentrazione che...

Practical Active Qubit Reset

05.03.2021

Active Qubit Reset Setup

When working with qubits, it’s essential to have a reliable state preparation. The easiest method for superconducting qubits is to passively wait for the qubit to decay into its ground state, but it’s slow and has poor fidelity. Active qubit reset decreases considerably the initialization time, while greatly increasing the...

Probing Local Magnetic Field Patterns - Q&A

26.02.2021

Probing Local Magentic Field Patterns

For this webinar we teamed up with Prof. Martino Poggio , whose work focuses on understanding the physics of materials and phenomena that is strongly dependent on the local conditions, be it by impurities or through the design through local probing of magnetic fields coming from currents and magnetization. Several...

Content Review – Lock-in Detection

15.02.2021

Lock-in Tab

Test and measurement tasks often carry the challenge that sought for signals are buried in noise. The fundamental use of a lock-in amplifier is to recover these signals, but modern digital lock-in amplifiers can do much more than this. To help you take full advantage of the capabilities of your...