A short-time transient analysis is presented for a sinusoidal input potential for a spherical particle. The objective of this work was to extract accurate values of the parameters associated with an intercalation into a spherical particle. These parameters are exchange current density, double-layer capacitance, and diffusion coefficient. The effects of these parameters on the response were examined using a sensitivity analysis, which indicated that optimum frequency values of the input perturbation exist for estimation of these parameters. A procedure is presented to obtain all these parameters using the short-time response. The results show that the short-time analysis is a useful method for estimating rapidly the values of these parameters of a system. (c) 2007 The Electrochemical Society.