Versatile technology for precise measurements

Paul Boughton

Capactive sensors are known as highly precise displacement and position measurement technology, achieving resolutions well below one nanometre. They are typically used in applications where high accuracies are required, where no forces can be exerted on the measurement object, where highly sensitive surfaces do not allow any contact, or where a long service life of the sensor is required.

The method of capacitive displacement measurement is based on the principle of the ideal plate-type capacitor. Capacitive sensors can also measure insulating material under certain conditions, in which the sensor grounding acts as ground electrode and the insulating material as coupling medium. Capacitive displacement sensors can be successfully applied in the industrial environment. Therefore the range of accessories for capacitive displacement sensors from Micro-Epsilon has been extended with a new long length CCg cable, because of long cable lengths being required for industrial environments.

Due to the measuring principle, capacitive sensors usually have a limited cable length. Now Micro-Epsilon has developed a solution for significantly increasing these cable lengths: the new CCg sensor cable for capaNCDT systems. These sensors are applied in a very broad range of applications. In the semi-conductor industry, they measure for example the thickness of wafers. The sensors are likewise applied in objectives for highly precise position measurement of lenses in the sub-nanometre range. They can be universally applied in test laboratories where different distance measurements are fulfilled using changing sensors. In medical engineering, capacitive sensors measure the uniformity of gelatine layers applied on pills.

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