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Contact-independent electrical conductance measurement

Patent ·
OSTI ID:1340576

Electrical conductance measurement system including a one-dimensional semiconducting channel, with electrical conductance sensitive to electrostatic fluctuations, in a circuit for measuring channel electrical current. An electrically-conductive element is disposed at a location at which the element is capacitively coupled to the channel; a midpoint of the element aligned with about a midpoint of the channel, and connected to first and second electrically-conductive contact pads that are together in a circuit connected to apply a changing voltage across the element. The electrically-conductive contact pads are laterally spaced from the midpoint of the element by a distance of at least about three times a screening length of the element, given in SI units as (K.di-elect cons..sub.0/e.sup.2D(E.sub.F)).sup.1/2, where K is the static dielectric constant, .di-elect cons..sub.0 is the permittivity of free space, e is electron charge, and D(E.sub.F) is the density of states at the Fermi energy for the element.

Research Organization:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
DOE Contract Number:
FG02-08ER46515
Assignee:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, MA)
Patent Number(s):
9,551,736
Application Number:
13/570,556
OSTI ID:
1340576
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (3)

Measuring Charge Transport in a Thin Solid Film Using Charge Sensing journal March 2010
Contact-Independent Measurement of Electrical Conductance of a Thin Film with a Nanoscale Sensor journal October 2011
The Effect of Electrostatic Screening on a Nanometer Scale Electrometer journal January 2011