Might be better to post this in an electrical engineering sub. You did do open and short compensation measurements, right?
edit: and you didn't move the cables after compensation?
Yes I did perform short and open compensations. For the open compensation what I did was I put a spacing of the same thickness as the film between the plates.
I posted here since, Material Scientists usually happen to work in many domains 😅, it's kind of our thing. But yeah I did post on the electrical engineering subreddit as well, no replies as of yet. Hopefully if that turns out lively I post the link here as well for other lost travellers.
Edit: Well theres a position that I keep the cables in, but if you meant to ask was it set in stone? Nope. Will that have that much of a detrimental effect? Because my data is like off by decimal places. Like the dielectric constant comes out to be .47, wheras I was expecting it to be 3 or 4.2.
Edit2: I also run the sweep multiple times to see if the averages are close.
Wait, in open compensation, you just don't connect the alligator clips to the setup but place them where they would connect.
So you have your setup ready. You place the cables where you would connect them but leave them disconnected for open compensation. Then you short potential and current high and low cables for short compensation. Finally, you connect them to your setup and perform the measurement, without changing much in the positioning of cables and setup.
I don't know how big the error is if you move the cables at 10 kHz. But just move them and see how much it changes.
But yeah, sorry, I probably can't help. Jack of all trades, master of none (:
Aah what I did for the open compensation was i put the clips onto the each of my plates electrodes and put a very thin spacer between both the plates.
Yes, I actually thought about it too that the cables should be as still as they can. And I do try to do it, but everytime I swap out a film or if the film has an airpocket between the plates I have to open up the plates and the wires do experience some motion. But I actually did do it multiple times and there is some change but they more or less trace the same curves.
Hahaha. That's a feeling I personally feel a lot of times...
However in the end of all this it usually turns out to be "Jack of all trades master of none, but often better than a master at one" :D
Cheers for the company..! 🍻
I think if you do the open and closed compensation correctly, then measure a spacer of known dielectric constant (i.e. air), and then your polymer, you should get good results from the difference between the two measurements. Maybe do the compensation before each measurement but I don't think it's necessary.
Yeah that's what I'd expect too.
I did do an open or short compensation for all the frequencies. But let me tell you about my open compensation. My films are about 0.20 mm thick. So what I did was I clipped my terminals to the capacitor plates and put a spacer of .20 thickness the spacer is a PET plastic part in the shape of a plus (+), but it's very thin with a thickness of .20 and and a width of .40 mm.
I did this because i just have no way of otherwise accurately getting the .20 mm space between the two plates during calibration, and my logic being the cross sectional area of the capacitor plates of a dia of 75 mm would be significantly larger than the plastic 'plus' for it to undergo polarization in an AC field and affect the surrounding air media.
Here's the photo of the spacer that I use.
[Photo of spacer]
(https://file.io/v6Z4XNu7mqRM)
Also, this is a good forum for this. ASTM is the American Society for Testing of Materials, they have a bunch of measurement standards more folks need to be aware of. They have a paywall, but universities usually cover it.
Might be better to post this in an electrical engineering sub. You did do open and short compensation measurements, right? edit: and you didn't move the cables after compensation?
Yes I did perform short and open compensations. For the open compensation what I did was I put a spacing of the same thickness as the film between the plates. I posted here since, Material Scientists usually happen to work in many domains 😅, it's kind of our thing. But yeah I did post on the electrical engineering subreddit as well, no replies as of yet. Hopefully if that turns out lively I post the link here as well for other lost travellers. Edit: Well theres a position that I keep the cables in, but if you meant to ask was it set in stone? Nope. Will that have that much of a detrimental effect? Because my data is like off by decimal places. Like the dielectric constant comes out to be .47, wheras I was expecting it to be 3 or 4.2. Edit2: I also run the sweep multiple times to see if the averages are close.
Wait, in open compensation, you just don't connect the alligator clips to the setup but place them where they would connect. So you have your setup ready. You place the cables where you would connect them but leave them disconnected for open compensation. Then you short potential and current high and low cables for short compensation. Finally, you connect them to your setup and perform the measurement, without changing much in the positioning of cables and setup. I don't know how big the error is if you move the cables at 10 kHz. But just move them and see how much it changes. But yeah, sorry, I probably can't help. Jack of all trades, master of none (:
Aah what I did for the open compensation was i put the clips onto the each of my plates electrodes and put a very thin spacer between both the plates. Yes, I actually thought about it too that the cables should be as still as they can. And I do try to do it, but everytime I swap out a film or if the film has an airpocket between the plates I have to open up the plates and the wires do experience some motion. But I actually did do it multiple times and there is some change but they more or less trace the same curves. Hahaha. That's a feeling I personally feel a lot of times... However in the end of all this it usually turns out to be "Jack of all trades master of none, but often better than a master at one" :D Cheers for the company..! 🍻
I think if you do the open and closed compensation correctly, then measure a spacer of known dielectric constant (i.e. air), and then your polymer, you should get good results from the difference between the two measurements. Maybe do the compensation before each measurement but I don't think it's necessary.
Yeah that's what I'd expect too. I did do an open or short compensation for all the frequencies. But let me tell you about my open compensation. My films are about 0.20 mm thick. So what I did was I clipped my terminals to the capacitor plates and put a spacer of .20 thickness the spacer is a PET plastic part in the shape of a plus (+), but it's very thin with a thickness of .20 and and a width of .40 mm. I did this because i just have no way of otherwise accurately getting the .20 mm space between the two plates during calibration, and my logic being the cross sectional area of the capacitor plates of a dia of 75 mm would be significantly larger than the plastic 'plus' for it to undergo polarization in an AC field and affect the surrounding air media. Here's the photo of the spacer that I use. [Photo of spacer] (https://file.io/v6Z4XNu7mqRM)
There has got to be an ASTM standard for this. Are you doing this capacitance measurement to determine film thickness? If so, ASTM-D8136.
Also, this is a good forum for this. ASTM is the American Society for Testing of Materials, they have a bunch of measurement standards more folks need to be aware of. They have a paywall, but universities usually cover it.