Interaction between Keithley 6485 picoammeter and the PC

Interaction between Keithley 6485 pico-ammeter and the PC through Lab. View By Shahab Khan

Development Process • Learned some Lab. View and SCPI language • Wrote Program with help of examples • Had a lot of problems getting the program to read non-zero values from the 6485 • With much help from the Keithley and National Instruments Technicians, finally got it to work

Experimental setup to test 6485 • Function Generator, settings: frequency~. 5 mhz ; max voltage ~ 5 V • 8. 6 Mega Ohm Resistor • Made simple circuit with 6485 probe • Should observe alternating current in the micro Ampere range

Controls • Toggle Auto Range • Set Manual Range (faster if manually set range) • Set wait time between subsequent measurements • Set a background current value to subtract from all the readings

Readings • Chart to observe the measurements • Numerical indicator to read last measurement • Number of Readings Indicator • Data Analysis after data acquisition: • Mean, standard deviation, variance, etc • Option to save current readings into a spreadsheet

Future • Need to fine tune program to our specific experimental setup • Help Setup PMT, tower of cells, and rest of setup; then start taking data • Possibly acquire Read-back mechanism of xyz position, then configure that with Lab. View