Insulating Material Characterization
About
This test bench is dedicated for characterizing the electrical properties of insulators within Metal-Insulation-Metal (MIM) and Metal-Ferroelectric-Metal (MFM) devices such as relative permittivity, AC and DC conductivity, current-voltage, dielectric losses, and electrostatic charges mapping
Description
This test bench involves the use of five measuring systems:
– Dielectric spectroscopy: involves measuring the relative permittivity, dielectric losses and conductivity by analysing their complex impedance under a sinusoidal alternating electric field in the frequency range 1 mHz – 400 MHz
– Current-voltage: involves measuring the DC conduction current at relatively high electric fields and thus allows to determine the DC conductivity of the sample and the underlying physical phenomena. Current measurements possible up to 100 fA
– Thermally stimulated discharge measurements: involves measuring the leakage current while linearly heating up/cooling down the sample. This allows to identify activation energy of traps and relaxation time.
– Ferroelectric Tester for P-E measurements
– Surface potential decay: after deposition of corona discharge on the sample surface, this system involves measuring the flow of electric charges over time and thus allows providing an image of the density and energy of the traps.
All this equipment enables measurements to be taken over wide temperature ranges (sometimes from nitrogen to 600°C), and in some cases under humidity control (RH from 10% to 90%).
Possibility to deposit metallic electrodes (gold…) by sputtering (Quorum Q150T ES)
Technical specifications:
For Dielectric spectroscopy (under nitrogen or dry air):
Measurement ranges: resistance 10-2 to 1014 Ω, capacitance: 10-15 to 1F, dielectric losses: 10-5 to 104
Measurement conditions: AC voltage: 10-4 to 3 V (RMS), frequency: 3×10-6 to 4×107 Hz, temperature: -180°C to 500°C
– Conduction current measurement (under nitrogen or dry air):
temperature: -100°C to 500°C, electric field up to 5kV, noise of current measurement: +/- 0.5 pA
For thermally stimulated discharge measurements (under nitrogen or dry air): temperature ramp from 25 to 300°C and ramp up-speed of 2°C/min
For Ferroelectric measurements : AixACCT TF3000. Measurements from ambient to 100°C
For Surface potential decay (done in climatic chamber): -40 to 180°C, relative humidity: 10 to 80%. Measurement for surface potential of +/-3kV and done using an electrostatic voltmeter TREK and kelvin probe
Case study:
For MIM and MFM samples configurations:
– leakage current under field and temperature conditions
– dielectric losses and dielectric constant measurements vs frequency, temperature for low k, high k dielectrics, composites, soft materials….
– Ferroelectric hysteresis cycle
– Electrostatic surface charges analysis by non-contacting electrostatic probe for samples with high area (minimum 2×2 cm2)
Access Provider / Facilities
