Charge measurement using an array of Faraday's Cups on a printed circuit board

An absolute method of measuring charge is to use a Faraday Cup (FC) principle. This study relates to a novel method of measuring charge on a flat substrate, which is coated with charged powder particles. The substrate consists of an array of FC with different dimensions. The sensor is manufactured using flame-retardant printed circuit board (PCB) technology. The objective of this work is to reduce the charge sharing by developing a grounded shield cup around each conductive cup in the array and accordingly increase cup-to-ground capacitance. The results have confirmed that the improved well shielding would provide a more accurate quantitative charge measurement.