Blogs

Characterization of Dye-Sensitized Solar Cell Impedance at Low Frequencies with the HF2IS Impedance Spectroscope

03.07.2015

The electrical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) technique is used to characterize the physical-chemical processes of the dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC) using different types of metal oxides semiconductors, dyes or electrolytes [1]. The EIS technique can be applied to obtain the DSSC frequency response over a wide frequency range from mHz up to MHz...

Deep Level Transient Spectroscopy with the HF2LI Lock-in Amplifier

23.05.2015

A very small concentration of lattice point defects, or simply defects, such as vacancies, impurities, dislocations, grain boundaries or cavities, are responsible for creating many different properties in semiconductors. Defects play a crucial (beneficial or detrimental) role in determining the suitability in terms of performance and reliability of a specific material to be used in a semiconductor device...

Measuring the I-V Characteristic of PN Junction Devices with the HF2LI

13.05.2015

Co-author and main contributor: Dr. Antonio Braga Introduction The p-n junction is the fundamental building block of semiconductor material electronics device such as transistors, diodes, sensors, laser, light emitting diodes, as well as solar cells. If one wants to know the fundamental functional properties of these devices, it is crucial...

Detecting a Small Fraction of Impedance Changes with Improved Sensitivity

16.09.2014

There are normally two types of impedance measurement. The first type is the dynamic impedance measurement where impedance can change rapidly over time. This is the case in electrical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) in microfluidics for cell counting and cell discrimination applications, for example...

Reducing Ground Disturbances with the HF2TA

26.02.2014

Ground loops can pose a serious problem in many measurement setups. Due to the multiple connections to and from the HF2TA Current Amplifier and other external components, several ground loop related issues can pop up in the signal being measured. These issues can be high-frequency oscillations (> 10 MHz), 50/60...

Taking Your Microfluidics EIS Measurement to the Ultra-High Frequency Domain

08.01.2014

Introduction The HF2IS Impedance Spectroscope from Zurich Instruments is a versatile tool suitable for label-free electrical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) of single cells in the domain of cell counting and discrimination. The high frequency range, from DC to 50 MHz, and the multi-frequency capability of the instrument enable microfluidics researchers not...

How to Tune the HF2LI-PID Controllers

17.09.2013

I often get questions from first-time users on how to properly tune the PID gain parameters. I am no expert in feedback control systems or the PID loop optimization, but I do believe tuning the HF2LI-PID parameters should not be an intimidating task for anybody who needs to use the...

Optimize Your HF2TA Transimpedance Amplifier Settings

24.05.2013

Users of the HF2TA transimpedance amplifier should always be aware of the trade-off between the transimpedance gain and the 3-dB roll-off bandwidth of the amplifier. (Hint: Since the HF2 software release 12.08, the bandwidth is also specified in the HF2TA gain drop-down list in ziControl.) However, there are other pitfalls...

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