NU 2016-120
Inventor
Matthew Grayson*
Jiajun Luo
Short Description
Accurate and time-saving method to electrically characterize materials.
Abstract
Accurate measurements of technologically important materials, such as conductive materials found in flexible electronics or fuel cells, can be difficult to achieve using standard methods. Northwestern engineers have developed an electrical characterization method that allows one to accurately measure conductivity and Hall effect of a given material in a single measurement, eliminating the need to switch contacts. The Hall effect can be measured using a single polarity and strength of magnetic field. This decreases the time required to characterize a material, simplifies the characterization procedure and enables the measurement of time-varying conductivities. Time-varying conductivities are known to occur in amorphous oxide semiconductors, which are driving today's flat-panel industry; proper characterization of such conductivity transients could help identify them and eliminate their detrimental effects. Additionally, this method does not require unreasonably large magnetic fields, increasing accuracy of measurements and making it possible to characterize the Hall effect of low mobility materials. Low mobility materials of technological importance include ionic conductors for fuel cells. The electrical characterization method developed at Northwestern provides a quick, accurate and highly sensitive method to electrically characterize a given material and measure transients, it can be useful in a wide variety of industries, including surface analysis instrumentation, semi-conductors and electronics.
Applications
Advantages
IP Status
US patent application has been filed.