Simulation of the Impedance Response of Materials with More than One Electrical Path

Materials and devices can often contain multiple interfaces that may or may not participate in the active function of a given material or device. However, they are often only evaluated at the specific frequency of application or in dc mode, which essentially disregards the rich information that the full frequency spectrum can contain. This causes a lot of useful information, which could be used to help understand their electrical behaviour, either for quality control, life prediction, reliability or basic understanding, to be lost. In this article, we utilize a combination of COMSOL Multiphysics simulations and equivalent circuit modelling to demonstrate the advantages of considering broadband ac measurements as a way to develop more detailed understanding of materials with more than one electrical path.

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