High Resolution Capacitance Bridge for Nano-structures

This patented technology is an Integrated Capacitance Bridge (ICB) that can perform ultra-high-resolution (aF), wide-temperature-range measurements of capacitance in nano-structures. The ICB has an operational range of 4K-300K and can measure at length scales 100x smaller than the current standard equipment. The ICB also uses a small excitation signal so that it can probe the electronic details of nano-scale structures without disturbing them. It can be used either as a stand-alone chip or integrated into a probe device for quality testing, measurement, or characterization of new and existing materials such as carbon nanotubes and graphene.

Stage of Research
The inventors have fabricated the ICB and tested it on top-gated graphene devices and carbon nanotube field effect transistors. These tests demonstrated that the ICB resolution was several orders of magnitude greater than a commercially available capacitance bridge.