pogo pin, contact probe, coaxial probe, double ended probe

Pogo pin is a device used in electronics to establish a (usually temporary) connection between two printed circuit boards. Named by analogy with the pogo stick toy, the pogo pin usually takes the form of a slender cylinder containing two sharp, spring-loaded pins. Pressed between two electronic circuits, the sharp points at each end of the pogo pin make secure contacts with the two circuits and thereby connect them together.

Pogo pins are usually arranged in a dense array, connecting together many individual nodes of the two circuit boards. They are very commonly found in automatic test equipment in the form of a bed of nails, where they facilitate the rapid, reliable connection of the devices under test (DUTs). In one extremely high-density configuration, the array takes the form of a ring containing hundreds or thousands of individual pogo pins; this device is sometimes referred to as a pogo tower.

They can also be used to establish more permanent connections, for example, in the Cray 2 computer.