Capacitors with very low loss: cryogenic vacuum-gap capacitors

Author

Zimmerman, Neil M.

Author_Institution

Nat. Inst. of Stand. & Technol., Gaithersburg, MD, USA

Volume

45

Issue

5

fYear

1996

fDate

10/1/1996 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

841

Lastpage

846

Abstract

We report on measurements of capacitors with about 1 pF of capacitance, which have unmeasurably small leakage at very low frequencies, placing a lower bound of about 10¹⁹Ω on the parallel resistance at an effective frequency of 1 mHz. These measurements are made possible by two themes: the use of vacuum-gap capacitors (i.e., no dielectric material, operated in vacuum), and detection of leakage using single electron tunneling (SET) electrometers, which have very high input impedance. We also report on good achieved results in time stability and lack of frequency and voltage dependence

Keywords

bridge circuits; capacitance measurement; capacitors; characteristics measurement; electrical faults; electrometers; electron device noise; low-temperature techniques; stability; tunnelling; 1 mHz; 1 pF; 10E19 ohm; AC stability; DC stability; cryogenic vacuum-gap capacitors; frequency dependence; input impedance; leakage; parallel resistance; single electron tunneling electrometers; time stability; vacuum-gap capacitors; voltage dependence; Capacitance measurement; Capacitors; Cryogenics; Dielectric materials; Dielectric measurements; Electrical resistance measurement; Electrons; Frequency measurement; Impedance measurement; Leak detection;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Instrumentation and Measurement, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9456

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/19.536699

Filename

536699