Portable stand-alone microcontroller-based 3-electrode potentio-galvanostat for thin film fabrication

• Main Authors: Javier, Jerrick Orendain, Montoya, S.A. M., Ong, F.L. C., Manzano, Enrique M., Manzano, Maria Carla F.
• Format: text
• Published: Animo Repository 2009
• Subjects: Potentiostat; Thin films; Physics
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/faculty_research/8494
• Institution: De La Salle University

This paper describes the design and fabrication of an inexpensive portable, stand-alone, and programmable 3-electrode potentio-galvanostat for thin film fabrications. Research in thin-films like conducting polymers can be brought to colleges in third world countries with this cheap system that does not require expensive computers, oscilloscopes, current sources, and instrumentation software. The heart of the device is a simple op-amp based current source that is controlled by a microcontroller with an analog to digital converter (ADC) and coupled to a cheap digital to analog converter (DAC). The current source can easily inject 200mA in the galvanostat mode and maintain 10 volts (between working and reference electrodes) in the potentiostat mode. It is programmable so that constant or pulsed waveforms of any strength, period and duration within range maybe used in the electrolysis. These modes and parameters are entered via keypad and monitored in an LCD panel.