ELECTROOPTIC INSTRUMENT

摘要

A needle-shaped terminal, i.e., a probe tip, is brought into extremely close proximity with an object being measured. This probe tip is formed from an optically active material and in itself is electrically non-conductive, so that it has no electrical influence whatsoever on the object being measured. When optical pulses are beamed onto this probe tip, the probe tip becomes an electric conductor and a current flows between it and the object being measured, so that the electric potential of said object can be measured. This facilitates previously impossible measurements of high-speed electric waveforms. It also facilitates high spatial resolution monitoring and control of probe tip position and characterisation of measurement sites, and enables highly reliable measurements to be made inexpensively.