1. Physics 327: Modern Instrumentation
Instructor:
Prof. Weida Wu
Office:
Serin 117W
Phone:
Office Hour:
arrange by
Lab TA:
Paul Sass
Textbook: “An Introduction to Modern Electronics”, by William L. Faissler, Wiley, 1st edition (March 5, 1991)
Web Site for Course:

2. Lecture and Lab sessions
Lecture (Wu):
Wednesday (6:40-8:00 PM)
SEC 208
Lab Sect. 3 (Sass):
Monday (6:40pm-9:30pm)
Serin 101
Lab Sect. 1 (Sass):
Tuesday (10:20am-1:20pm)
Lab Sect. 2 (Wu):
Tuesday (3:20pm-6:20pm )
Lab Sect. 4 (Sass):
Thursday (6:40pm-9:30pm)
Nominally 2 peoples per group unless otherwise instructed.
Course Goal The goal of this class is to learn a number of basic electronic components and their analysis, so that you can understand and build circuits that are useful in physics experiments.
Lab Preparation The lab instructions are available at the course home page. You are expected to read and understand these instructions before coming to the lab. In addition, you are expected to read and understand the suggested chapters of the textbook prior to the lab.

3. Course syllabus No lecture on March 4
Topic
Read Chapters
Suggested Problems 1
DC Voltage divider (1 week lab) 2
AC, Capacitance, Impedance (1 week lab) 3
RLC Resonance (1 week lab)
8-12
12.1, 4
Diode and Transistor (1 week lab)
40-45 5
Operational Amplifier (2 week lab)
28-31 6
Difference and Instrumentation Amplifiers (2 week lab) 7
Digital Basics: Timers, Counters (2 week lab) 8
DAC, ADC (2 week lab)
34-36, 54 9
LabView, GPIB (1 week lab)
No lecture on March 4
11 lectures, 9 labs (reports), 6-8 quizzes

4. The lowest quiz grade will be dropped. Grading:
Quizzes (6-8):
Short quizzes will be given occasionally during lectures through the semester. Topics in the quizzes are lecture and lab contents, reading assignments, and homework.
Make-up quizzes will not be offered unless you have a documented medical reason for missing the quiz.
The lowest quiz grade will be dropped.
Grading:
The course grade will be based mostly on the lab reports (~90%), with the remainder determined by lab preparation and participation, quiz scores and lecture attendance. (~10%)
Grade cutoffs (tentative)     A B+ B C+ C D F 90 85 80 72 65 55
<55

5. Lab Reports Maximum score for each lab is 100.
Lab reports are due one week after.
Late reports will be accepted up to one week after the due date, but will be penalized by a 50% grade reduction.
The report must be typed; the graphs are to be generated using OriginLab© (highly preferred). Drawings and circuit diagrams should be neatly drawn and labeled.
Include the name(s) of your lab partner(s).
The grades of lab reports also include lab preparation and participation. Late attendance of labs (>30 minutes) will be penalized by a 20% of grade reduction.
No “carbon copies” of the reports will be accepted. Do not write a “report” if you have not actually done the lab.
The report must be brief, yet fairly self-sufficient.
Please make sure you answer all the questions in lab instructions in your report.

6. Lab report Introduction Method Results and discussion Conclusion
Clearly state the objective(s), and a short explanation of the theoretically background, if appropriate. To avoid redundancy, do not copy the entire lab description in your report.
Method
Must include brief description of the equipment used and the experimental procedures followed. Also include accurate neatly-drawn circuit diagrams.
Do not include your results in this section.
Results and discussion
Tables and figures (with proper labels and units)
Connect the results back to the theory
Often, the obtained data are somewhat different from what was expected. In this case, you should try to understand why and justify.
Conclusion
Discuss if the goal(s) set forth were met.

7. Important concepts: current and voltage
Current (I): flow of positive charges.
Unit: Coulomb/sec
Meter: A
in series
Note: In solid conductors (e.g. metals), current is mainly carried by electrons (negative charges).
Voltage (V): work per unit charge (potential diff.)
Unit: Joule/Coulomb
Meter: V
in parallel

8. Simplest I-V: Ohm’s law
Ohmic (linear) behavior:
R: Resistance of the resistor.
Ohm’s law:
Non-ohmic I-V characteristic deviate from this linear behavior. Example: diodes.

9. Kirchhoff’s circuit laws
Kirchhoff’s current law (charge conservation) or
Kirchhoff’s voltage law (energy conservation)

10. Equivalent circuits
Resistors in series
Resistors in parallel

11. Thevenin’s theorem (pg. 45)
Any complex network of linear circuit elements (sources, resistors and impedances) having 2 terminals can be replaced by a single equivalent voltage source* connected in series with a single resistor (or output impedance).
Vth
Rth
Rth is also called output impedance of the equivalent circuit.
*Similar (Norton’s theorem) statement is true for equivalent current source.

12. Lab 1: DC Voltage divider
Non-ohmic I-V
Vth
Rth RL A

13. Comment electronic components
LED
resistors
Breadboard

14. Electric connection of breadboard

15. Electronic instruments
Function generator
Digital Multimeter
Oscilloscope

16. Resistor Color Code Bands

17. Metric prefix Text Symbol Factor tera T 1012 giga G 109 mega M 106
kilo k
103
milli m
10-3
micro μ
10-6
nano n
10-9
pico p
10-12