ac milliohm circuits
Hello,
yes, I also imaged power electronic components when considering low impedance LCR (or LR in this case) instruments. I have been recently using a HP 4261A for such purposes, it has 1 mΩ range. Current Agilent replacement 4263B has almost similar data, execept for an additional higher measuring frequency of 100 kHz and a lot of extras.
4261A and larger 4262A user and service manuals are downloadable from agilent.com, including circuit diagrams. It may be however somewhat difficult to indentify the basic measuring circuit among the surrounding functions.
For professional purposes, I would try to get a HP4261A or 4262A from surplus or ebay. As I already said, it's no problem to design either a fully analog or "digital" vectorial impedance meter for low range. The basic measuring circuit can either be current source with voltage sense or voltage source with current sense. The said Analog Devices IC is using the latter principle, primary measuring succeptance, for low range the first is probably better.
The source has to be driven by a sine wave of suitable frequency, the sensed value has to be processed vectorial to separate real and imaginary impedance part. This is rather easy for sine wave, it can be done with a simple synchronous demodulator made from an OP and an analog switch.
Regards,
Frank