Sources of error in tetrapolar impedance measurements on biomaterials and other ionic conductors

Tetrapolar electrode systems are commonly used for impedance measurements on biomaterials and other ionic conductors. They are generally believed to be immune to the influence from electrode polarization impedance and little can be found in the literature about possible pitfalls or sources of error when using tetrapolar electrode systems. In this paper we show that electrode polarization impedance can indeed influence the measurements and that also other phenomena such as negative sensitivity regions, separate current paths and common-mode signals may seriously spoil the measured data.