Larger Value and SI Measurement of the Improved Cryogenic Capacitor for the Electron-Counting Capacitance Standard

Published

April 1, 2003

Author(s)

Neil M. Zimmerman, Mahmoud A. El-Sabbagh, Yicheng Wang

Abstract

We report on several advances in the development of a cryogenic vacuum-gap capacitor C_cryo, for use with the electron-counting capacitance standard (ECCS). First, we have increased the value by about a factor of ten, to 10 pF; this will both make the ECCS more useful as a commercial standard and also allows a substantial reduction in the relative uncertainty of the calibration of C_cryo. Second, the capacitor's stability is excellent, with a relative drift less than 10^-9/hour. This stability is required for the third advance: we have succeeded in tuning the calculable capacitor, which allows us to make a measurement of SI units, without requiring us to fabricate the capacitor to have a precise value of C_cryo. We demonstrate such a measurement, with an uncertainty of about 4x10^-8.

Citation

IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement

Volume

52

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1109/TIM.2003.810026

Keywords

Calculable capacitor, cryogenic vacuum-gap capacitor

Citation

Zimmerman, N. , El-Sabbagh, M. and Wang, Y. (2003), Larger Value and SI Measurement of the Improved Cryogenic Capacitor for the Electron-Counting Capacitance Standard, IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement, [online], https://doi.org/10.1109/TIM.2003.810026 (Accessed October 11, 2025)