A simple, inexpensive electrometer used to measure currents of individual silicon vidicon diodes in the 10-16to 10-15ampere range

A simple, inexpensive, essentially noiseless current-measuring device has been devised with a sensitivity of 10
^-16
to 10
^-15
ampere. Its operation relies on a measurement of the voltage decay of the device under test, the current being proportional to the rate of change of the voltage. Individual diodes of silicon vidicon targets (10
^-15
ampere) and high resistivity layers (10
¹⁵
ohms/square) have been measured. In addition to its simplicity, this technique lends itself to nondestructive in-line testing.