22
®
ArC Instruments Ltd.
CurveTracer
CurveTracer is a standard triangular pulsed IV measurement module, with incorporated current cut-
off. During each WRITE pulse, a current measurement is taken towards the end of the pulse.
Positive voltage max (V):
sets the maximum
voltage during the positive sweep.
Negative voltage max (V):
sets the maximum
voltage during the negative sweep.
Voltage step (V):
sets the step voltage, for both
positive and negative sweeps.
Start voltage (V):
sets the start voltage value
(limited to 50mV).
Step width (ms):
sets the width of the pulses,
minimum of 1 ms.
Cycles:
sets the number of consecutive IV
measurements to be taken.
Interpulse time (ms):
sets the interpulse timing between two adjacent pulses.
Positive current cut-off (uA):
Sets the positive current cut-off threshold, variable between 10 and 1000uA.
Set to ‘0’ to disable it.
Negative current cut-off (uA):
Same as for positive current.
Halt and return
checkbox: When checked, the input voltage will cut-off in <30us, then return to 0 in
voltage step increments, only after either of the current thresholds have been exceeded. If no current
threshold is imposed, the checkbox has no effect.
Bias Type:
dropdown menu contains two options: Staircase
–
where Interpulse time is 0; Pulse
–
where
both terminals of the device are grounded between measurement pulses for the specified interpulse
duration (‘return to zero’ pulsing).
IV span:
Dropdown menu containing a selection of IV common sweep run modalities. Decide whether
to begin sweeping towards positive or negative voltages, or restrict IV measurement to one voltage
polarity only.
Following application of the protocol a
‘CurveTracer’ entry will appear in the Device
History panel. Double click it to visualize the IV
measurement as shown in Fig. 22.
Right click on the plots and select Export to
save the figure, or corresponding data.
Figure 20: Illustration of CurveTracer pulsing algorithm.
Figure 22: CurveTracer results example.
Figure 21: CurveTracer options panel.