Blogs

Comparison of Liquid Conductivity Probes

29.04.2021

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...

Capturing Transients with the Zurich Instruments Toolkit

07.04.2021

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

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...

Proximity Sensors – Inductive or Capacitive?

07.01.2021

A proximity sensor is a sensor that detects nearby objects without physical contact [1]. They are commonly used, in applications ranging from production lines to modern mobile devices, mainly thanks to their non-contact configuration and the accompanying long lifetime. The working principle is simple...

Function Generation Via Auxiliary Outputs on Your Instruments

26.11.2020

Introduction Quite often one wants to generate an electrical waveform to assist his or her lock-in or impedance measurements. Such a function can be generated by a dedicated function generator, but ideally should be produced by the same instrument, not only to save lab space but also to minimize the...

Measuring Dielectric Properties of Materials with Varying Thickness

30.09.2020

A dielectric is traditionally defined as an electrical insulator with very poor conductivity at DC. However, because of its polarizability, charges can be stored in a dielectric material, typically in the format of dipoles, in the low and medium AC frequency range.

Multiplexed Impedance Measurements

17.06.2020

Introduction Having more impedance measurement channels is often desirable in many applications. For instance, in electrical impedance tomography (EIT), it is common to have many channels to achieve enough spatial resolution (144 electrodes on the thorax) [1]. Naturally, this can be done with multiple instruments working together. When synchronization is...

Humidity Sensors – Resistive or Capacitive?

15.06.2020

Humidity sensors (also known as hygrometers) are commonly used in applications ranging from everyday sensing to lab research. They are typically placed in an enclosed chamber, such as a car or a glovebox, where they are used to check whether the humidity is healthy for humans or materials inside.

5 Tips to Improve Your Impedance Measurements

02.04.2020

Impedance applications often have different requirements, but the common goals are similar; get the best possible accuracy, precision, and repeatability. This blog post will guide you to the best measurement settings to improve your impedance measurements. It will help you to get the best data and save your valuable time...

Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy of Tap Water

06.01.2020

Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) is a popular non-destructive technique to characterize the physicochemical properties of materials, particularly at the solid-liquid (or electrode-electrolyte) interface. Despite the complexity of the measured data, EIS can be used to study many electrochemical devices (batteries, supercapacitors and fuel cells), dielectric coatings, as well as microfluidic chips...

Automated 2D Impedance Sweeps on the MFIA

28.08.2019

Many devices and materials exhibit an impedance which depends on both frequency and other parameters such as bias voltage. To fully characterize the impedance of these samples requires an impedance analyzer with the ability to sweep in two dimensions. The MFIA (and MFLI with MF-IA option) can be easily controlled via any of the five included APIs to open up the full parameter space of impedance analysis...

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