IMMITTANCE SPECTROSCOPY OF SMART COMPONENTS AND NOVEL DEVICES

AC small‐signal immittance spectroscopy is employed as a viable tool to demonstrate electrical characterization, performance improvement, and quality assurance issues of smart materials‐based components and novel devices. The variation in the ac response, complemented via dc measurements within a range of tolerating temperature, delineates competing phenomena occurring in the microstructures of these engineering material systems. The results are presented in a generic manner with possible explanations on the mechanisms for two selected Debye‐like (nearly ideal) and non‐Debye (non‐ideal) low‐capacitance resistors. This spectroscopic approach allows systematic development of a representative equivalent circuit, considered to be the characteristic of the devices and components, for specific applications.