Electrochemical measurement of the size of microband electrodes: A theoretical study

A theoretical proof-of-concept study demonstrating the use of an electrochemical method to measure the width and length of a band electrode of unknown dimensions is presented. It is found that by using a fully irreversible redox couple it is possible to characterise a band electrode without prior knowledge of the electron transfer rate constant or the formal potential. By using the peak-to-peak separation (E _p-p ) and the magnitude of the ratio of backward peak current to forward peak current (|I _backward /I _forward |) as diagnostic parameters that characterise the shape and size of the resulting voltammetric wave, the band width can be estimated with an error of less than 4% compared to its true value and with an error in length of less than 1%.