Impedance Overview

The electrical impedance of a material or device refers to the extent to which it opposes the flow of an electrical current. Impedance comprises inductance, capacitance and resistance, and is often represented as a complex value to allow for the inclusion of the phase between the testing voltage and measured current.

Impedance measurements represent a non-destructive way to probe the properties of a material or device by injecting a sinusoidal voltage and measuring the returning current with a phase-sensitive technique. When varying the signal frequency, impedance spectroscopy yields critical information about the frequency-dependent behavior of the sample and thus provides a fundamental characterization of its dielectric properties.

Whether you are characterizing a semiconductor junction with DLTS or developing a wearable biosensor, Zurich Instruments' products deliver accurate, fast measurements and give you access to an advanced toolset for data acquisition and analysis. Furthermore, our instruments cover the low frequency and high impedance range that is out of reach to traditional impedance analyzers.

These capabilities – unique in a single instrument – unlock a measurement parameter space that allows you to characterize your samples according to your requirements. LabOne^®, the powerful software interface that runs on all our instruments, supports application programming interfaces (APIs) for five popular scripting languages to enable you to integrate our impedance analyzers into existing setups.

Connecting our instruments to the device under test is also straightforward. You can use the MFITF test fixture – included with the MFIA Impedance Analyzer – to take advantage of quick-change sample carriers; alternatively, it is possible to connect your own fixture or cable set directly to the instrument's front panel. A compensation tool in LabOne enables you to handle the fixture's parasitics.