ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the most common measurements approaches, with special focuses on the detection circuitry and on the minimization of noise required to achieve high resolution, pivotal in modern micro- and nano-scale applications. Impedance is a ubiquitous quantity: being the ratio between two fundamental electrical quantities, voltage and current, it can be leveraged in a wide range of applications from materials to devices, transducing measurable quantities, and in particular their variations in time, from the physical domain to the electrical domain. Capacitance is a particular type of impedance characterized by a purely reactive term. Capacitance is a particular type of impedance characterized by a purely reactive term. Its prominence among other types of reactive impedances is due to the key role of capacitors in electronic circuits and to the ubiquitous presence of capacitive coupling between two conductors separated by a dielectric material or between two layers of charge.
