Design and Characterization of an Ultralow-Potential Drift Ag/AgCl Electric Field Sensor

This paper presents an all-solid porous Ag/ AgCI electric field sensor with ultralow-potential drift for detecting the seafloor electric field signals. The superiority of porous electrode compared with flat electrode on the polarization stability is expounded, and the technological process using solid state agglomeration in developing the all-solid porous Ag/ AgCI electrode core are described. Moreover, a new sensor shell is proposed. Numerous parameters, e.g., polarization resistance, self-potential, drift, etc., of the proposed electrode are tested. The experimental results show that the self-potential is less than ± 0.1 mV, the source resistance is less than 0.010, and the drift potential is less than ±5μV/24h, which indicate the superior performance of the proposed Ag/ AgCI electric field sensor for marine electric field exploration.