2014/07/21 by Hansjörg Scherer, H. Scherer, Gerd-Dietmar Willenberg +10
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Electrical Measurement Techniques #Analog and Mixed-Signal Circuit Design #FOS: Physical sciences #Instrumentation and Detectors (physics.ins-det) #Magnetic Field Sensors Techniques #Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) #cond-mat.mes-hall #physics.ins-det
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1407.5508
8 pages, 3 figures
openalex publication_date 2014/07/21 · arxiv created 2014/08/06 · arxiv updated 2014/08/07 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
A standard method for picoammeter calibrations is the capacitor charging technique, which allows generating traceable currents in the sub-nA range. However, its accuracy is limited by the ac-dc differences of the capacitances involved. The Ultrastable Low-noise Current Amplifier (ULCA) is a novel high-precision amperemeter for direct current measurements in the pA range, developed at PTB. Its amplifier stages, based on resistor networks and op-amps, can be calibrated traceably with a cryogenic current comparator (CCC) system. We compare the results from both independent calibration routes for two different ULCA prototypes. We find agreement between both methods at an uncertainty level below 10 microA/A, limited by the uncertainty of the currents generated with the capacitor charging method. The investigations confirm the superior performance of the new ULCA picoammeter.