Influence of finite size probes on the measurement of electrical resistivity using the four-probe technique

The four-probe technique is widely used in the characterization of electrical properties of solids and thin films. To investigate the influence of finite size probes with non-planar contact on the standard four-probe method, we have proposed an image method to simulate the potential distribution wit...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of semiconductors Vol. 35; no. 8; pp. 20 - 23
Main Author 何凯 李杨 陈星 王建新 张勤耀
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published 01.08.2014
Subjects
Approximation
Electrical properties
Electrical resistivity
Errors
Mathematical analysis
Mathematical models
Semiconductors
四探针技术
四探针法
平面接触
标准方法
测量
电势分布
电阻率
计算结果
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ISSN1674-4926
DOI10.1088/1674-4926/35/8/082003

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Summary:The four-probe technique is widely used in the characterization of electrical properties of solids and thin films. To investigate the influence of finite size probes with non-planar contact on the standard four-probe method, we have proposed an image method to simulate the potential distribution within the specimen. The numerical results show that for infinitely thick samples, the standard method can only provide accurate determination of resistivity （relative error below 1%） when the ratio of the average inter-electrode spacing to the diameter of the probe is greater than 3. We have also found that disregarding the probe size brings a less dominate error than that introduced by the approximate formula, when the sample＇s thickness is close to the inter-electrode spacing.
Bibliography:He Kai, Li Yang, Chen Xing, Wang Jianxin, and Zhang Qinyao （1 Key Laboratory of Infrared Imaging Materials and Detectors, Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200083, China 2University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China）
The four-probe technique is widely used in the characterization of electrical properties of solids and thin films. To investigate the influence of finite size probes with non-planar contact on the standard four-probe method, we have proposed an image method to simulate the potential distribution within the specimen. The numerical results show that for infinitely thick samples, the standard method can only provide accurate determination of resistivity （relative error below 1%） when the ratio of the average inter-electrode spacing to the diameter of the probe is greater than 3. We have also found that disregarding the probe size brings a less dominate error than that introduced by the approximate formula, when the sample＇s thickness is close to the inter-electrode spacing.
11-5781/TN
electrical resistance; four-probe technique; finite size probes; image method
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content type line 23
ISSN:1674-4926
DOI:10.1088/1674-4926/35/8/082003