Experiment: Operational Amplifier

Name: Lab Partner: Lab Group: Due Date: Stephen Rhatigan Kevin McMahon 2 16-12-11

Introduction
This lab was an introduction to the operational amplifier, its use and applications. The op amp is so called because of its potential to carry out various analogue operations including multiplication, integration and differentiation. In this experiment two such applications of the op amp were studied experimentally while other operations were examined from a theoretical point of view. An ideal op amp is characterised by having infinite input impedance:
Impedance is the measure of the opposition that an electrical circuit presents to the passage of a current when a voltage is applied

-Wikipedia The significance of infinite input impedance is that no current will flow into the two input terminals and the op amps internal circuitry does not draw current from the signal supply. The ideal case is also characterised by zero output impedance and infinite open-loop gain, which is the gain of the amplifier without positive or negative feedback. To compensate for the infinite (or, in practice, very large) open-loop gain, which would result in clipping of the output signal, a feedback loop is incorporated, which dissipates the massive voltage gain. The first circuit studied was the inverting amplifier, a schematic of which can be found in part a of the Experimental Method section. As a complete analysis of this circuit has been supplied in the lab manual I will neglect to repeat it here but the key assumptions applied to op-amp analysis are worth mentioning: 1. No current flows into or out of the inputs. 2. The voltage at the positive and negative input terminals is the same. The first assumption is a direct result of the infinite input impedance of the op-amp and this means that the current flowing through both resistors has to be the same since no current goes into the input pins. The second assumption is based on the infinite open-loop gain of the ideal op-amp. The output voltage is proportional to the difference between the two input voltages:

In the above equation is the open-loop gain. Assuming that the above equation we have:

is infinite and rearranging

This implies that the voltage at the input terminals must be equal. While these assumptions are based on the ideal case, any deviations arising from the use of a real op-amp, while contributing to the error in the results, can be deemed negligible in terms of the analysis. Next we studied the set up as shown in Part B of the Experimental Method section the filter. From this schematic we see that the set up is the same as the set up in Part A but with a capacitor added in parallel with the feedback resistor. In understanding why this configuration acts as a filter one must look at the frequency dependence of the impedance associated with a capacitor:

In the above equation j represents , is the angular frequency 2 f and C is the capacitance. As in Part A we would expect the gain to follow the form:

However, the feedback resistor component of the circuit has been replaced by a capacitor and resistor in parallel and as such the value represented by in the above equation must be replaced by the equivalent resistance of the RC loop: the impedance of the combination, ZF. As stated above the impedance of the capacitor is ZC , while the impedance, ZR, of a resistor is simply its resistance, in this case R F. As the two are in parallel the impedance of the combination may be calculated as follows:

This may be rearranged to give:

Plugging in the values listed above gives:

For the purposes of our experiment we took RF = RS. This gives that:

From here we can calculate the magnitude of the frequency response of the gain:

At a precursory glance it is obvious that at high frequencies the gain falls off while at lower frequencies where the value of the gain approaches a value of 1. As such it would be expected that the circuit would act as a low pass filter. Having plotted the above in Mathematica the following graph was generated:
Gain 1.0

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2 5000 10000 15000 20000 Frequency

Using the same analysis it is possible to conceive of a high-pass filter which incorporates the op-amp. Consider the circuit below:

Here the impedance of the resistor and capacitor in parallel is given by:

This gives that the frequency response of the voltage gain is:

If the values of the resistances are equal we get that the magnitude is:

From this equation we see that limit of the gain as limit goes to 1.

is 0 and that if

the

Once again the above was plotted in Mathematica with the following result:
Gain 1.00

0.95

0.90

0.85

0.80 5000 10000 15000 20000 Frequency

It is also possible to create a band-pass filter by combining these two circuits as follows:

Here we see that:

Where ZF and ZS are as outlined above. This gives that:

The magnitude it as follows:

If the values of the capacitances are equal and the resistances are equal this equation simplifies to:

The resulting plot from Mathematica, using the values of the resistances and capacitance from the experiment, looks as follows:
Gain 0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

5000

10000

15000

20000

Frequency

This band-pass filter and the peak frequency depend on the values of Cs, CF, RS and R F as follows:

While this circuit functions as a band-pass filter it is not a very accurate one as it has a low Q-factor. Band-passes with a narrower band-width would require a more complicated circuit.

Experimental Method
Part a: The Inverting Amplifier The apparatus was switched off. The prototyping board was wired to produce an inverting amplifier as shown in the schematic below:

Initially values of 10k and 100k were selected for RS and RF respectively. Having wired the board it was switched on as was the oscilloscope. A sine wave input signal of approximately 1kHz was applied. The voltage gain was measured for a variety of input voltages. The above was repeated for different values of RF and the measure gain was compared with that predicted theoretically Part b: The Low-Pass Filter The board was wired to produce the circuit below:

The gain was measured as a function of input frequency and the results were plotted.

Results
Part A
RS = 10k , RF = 100k Theoretical Gain 10 0.1 Measured Gain 10 0.3

RS = 10k , RF = 1.2M Theoretical Gain 120 6 Measured Gain 118 3

RS = 10k , RF = 4.7M Theoretical Gain 470 20 Measured Gain 460 10

Part B
Measured frequency dependence of the voltage gain.

Gain vs Frequency of Op-Amp Filter

1.2 1 0.8 Gain 0.6 Series1 0.4 0.2 0 -5 0 5 10 Frequency(Hz) 15 20 25

Theoretical frequency dependence of the voltage gain.

Gain 1.0

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2 5000 10000 15000 20000 Frequency

Mathematica plot of measured gain vs. frequency.

Gain 1.0

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

5000

10000

15000

Frequency

A combination of the theoretical and measured plots:

Gain 1.0

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2 5000 10000 15000 20000 Frequency

Error Analysis
The errors in the measured values for the gain in Part A were calculated using twice the standard deviation as calculated in Excel. For the higher values of RF it was not possible to take as many measurements as I would have liked as clipping occurred at the higher amplitudes. However, due to the nature of the measurements I believe that the standard deviation is a valid approach to calculating the error. For the theoretical values the equation for the gain was as follows:

As such, to calculate the theoretical error I employed the formula:  I took the error in the resistances to be the tolerance values as specified by the colour codes. This was also the method I used in calculating the values for the resistances. The following table was consulted:
Temp. Multiplier 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 10-1 10-2 5% 10% J K ( 5%) 0.5% 0.25% 0.1% 0.05% ( 10%) D C B A Tolerance Coefficient (ppm/K) 1% 2% F G 250 100 50 15 25 20 10 5 1 U S R P Q Z Z M K

Colour

Significant figures 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Black Brown Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Violet Gray White Gold Silver

None

20%

1. Any temperature coefficent not assigned its own letter shall be marked "Z", and the coefficient found in other documentation. 2. For more information, see EN 60062. 3. Yellow and Gray are used in high-voltage resistors to avoid metal particles in the lacquer.[3]

The two lower resistors had a brown tolerance band meaning a deviation of 1% from the specified resistance while the higher resistances had gold tolerance bands signifying a 5% confidence interval. For the error bars in the plot of the frequency dependence of the voltage gain the following was used:  The error in the measured peak to peak voltages was dictated by the oscilloscope and was in the range of 2mV. Calculations of the results and their corresponding errors were performed in Excel and Mathematica and have been attached to the email containing this report.

Discussion
This experiment was easily performed and bore satisfactory results that showed concurrence between the measured and theoretically calculated values. I found that the most difficult part of this experiment came in wiring the prototyping board correctly and in ensuring that the appropriate connections were made and that what needed to be grounded was grounded. Having built the correct circuit the rest of the experiment was merely recording the relevant data. In Part A of the experiment the results adhered to the theoretical predictions and there was nothing unexpected that would have provided fodder for discussion. In determining the values of the resistors, I consulted a table of the colour codes and took the error to be those specified by the tolerance bands. Ideally I would have liked to measure these values using a multimeter but I was unable to find one that wasn t in use. As such I had to be satisfied that the codes were accurate. Also, for higher values of RF t wasn t possible to take as large a range of data as clipping occurred. This was of minor significance however as the data I did manage to collect would lead me to believe that the results would have been the same had the apparatus been able to handle greater output voltages. I found that the most interesting aspect of the experiment was Part B. Having experimented with the Lock-In amplifier and employed the use of various filters it was interesting to see and understand how to build one. When performing analysis on the low-pass circuit, I plotted the equation for the magnitude of the voltage gain in Mathematica and found that while the gain fell off with increases in the frequency, the theoretical graph did not resemble the plot of the measured data. On closer inspection I realised that I had plotted the gain as a function of angular frequency rather than frequency. When I tweaked the equation the result showed a greater correlation to the measured data than I would have expected. When I combined the theoretical plot with the measured data in one graph I saw that the experimental data behaved exactly as was predicted with one small discrepancy: the measured gain was slightly higher right across the frequency range. In assessing why this was the case there are a few potential explanations. The difference may be attributed to inaccuracies in the values of the resistances and capacitances but I believe that the more likely cause was the peak to peak voltage values as read from the oscilloscope. As there were anomalies in the sinusoidal waveforms on the screen of the oscilloscope, in the form of sudden little jumps in the peaks and troughs, I believe that the oscilloscope would have incorporated these into its measurements, leading to values slightly higher than the actual voltages. In terms of the other applications of the op-amp listed in the lab manual, namely the integrator and differentiator, I neglected to repeat the experiment for these configurations. The reason for this was that the analysis had been given and to repeat the data collection would have felt like going through the motions.

Conclusion
This experiment highlighted the versatility and importance of the op-amp. That the use of one tiny component in various combinations with other devices can be applied to such a wide range of operations whets the appetite for further investigation into its potential. I particularly enjoyed the theoretical construction of the different filters and the results from Part B of the experiment would lead me to believe that the high- and band-pass filters would work equally well in practice as they did on paper.