THE SIMPLE SPOT-WELDING APPARATUS

A simple spot-welding apparatus has been developed for the fabrication of stable electrodes used in the measurement of transport properties in condensed matter physics. The apparatus is especially suited for th e use of brittle and small sized samples of rare-earth intermetallic c ompounds (REICs). The spot welding is made by a sharp pulse (150 A and several mu s), generated by the precise time generation IC in a capac itor discharge circuit, to avoid breaking the sample. Stable electrode s of six 15 mu Au wires can be made on a REIC sample with length less than 1 mm. (C) 1998 American Institute of Physics. [S0034-6748(98)0240 7-1].