Section 4: Sourcing and measuring
2470 High Voltage SourceMeter Instrument Reference Manual
4-6
2470-901-01 Rev. A /
May
2019
Determining whether to use front or rear terminals
The terminals on the front panel are banana jack connectors, and the rear-panel terminals are triaxial
connectors. Depending on your test setup, the test environment, and the precision of your
measurements, you may see different results between measurements taken from the front and rear
terminals.
For the most precise measurements, use the rear-panel triaxial terminals.
You will get the best
results with rear-panel connections if you are making measurements or sourcing current in the 10 nA
and 100 nA ranges or when making bipolar junction transistor (BJT) measurements.
You may also want to use the rear-panel terminals if the test environment is electrically noisy. The
shielding on the triaxial cables will prevent environmental noise from affecting measurements.
Setting the instrument to use the front or rear terminals
If the output is on when you change the settings for the terminals that are used, the output turns off.
Using the front panel:
1.
Press the
FUNCTION
key.
2.
Select the source and measure combination
3.
Press the
TERMINALS FRONT/REAR
switch.
When F is lit, the instrument is using the front-panel terminals. When R is lit, the instrument is using
rear-panel terminals.
Using SCPI commands:
To change to the front-panel terminals for current measurements, send the command:
ROUTe:TERMinals FRONt
To change to the rear-panel terminals for current measurements, send the command:
ROUTe:TERMinals REAR
Using TSP commands:
To change to the front-panel terminals, send the command:
smu.terminals = smu.TERMINALS_FRONT
To change to the rear-panel terminals, send the command:
smu.terminals = smu.TERMINALS_REAR
