I am testing steel embedded in mortar with a lollipop type specimen. When I test it from 1MHz to 1Hz, with ac amplitude 10 mV in solartron FRA 1260 coupled with 1287A, I am getting negative impedance in the real axis in the high frequency region of the nyquist plot. The same specimen when I test it in PARSTAT 4000, my curve is in positive side of the real axis of the nyquist plot. Which spectra is correct?

I am using standard cables from the manufacturer in both the cases. So inductive loops due to non-standardized length of wires do not arise. I tried two solutions to fix the problem in solartron.

1) I reduced the start frequency from 1MHz to 100 kHz and Solartron is giving postive results in nyquist plot. I am not sure of selecting the frequency range. I chose 1MHz to understand the solution resistance. Should I reduce the frequency range?

2) I increased the ac amplitude from 10 mV to 50 mV. This also helped to remove the negative impedance in HF region. However, I am not sure of the linearity of the spectra.

Which approach is correct? please help.

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