Physics 271 Spring 2017
Syllabus and Schedule

Note: Jan 11 is Monday schedule, and class will meet in the lab room, Physics 005, at the regular lab time, 1:15 pm. This will be an intro lab section by Dr. Bomze.

Readings: Eggleston 1.1, 1.2, 1.2.1

After going through course logistics, I will cover basic material on DC circuits (which should be mostly review): charge, current, potential, EMF, Ohm's Law and resistance, schematic diagrams, power. We will review the combination of resistors in series and parallel.

Readings: Eggleston 1.2.2, 1.2.3

After covering voltage dividers, I'll go over Kirchoff's Rules for solving circuits. We'll look at two methods for applying them, the "Branch Current" method, and the "Loop Current" method.

Readings: Eggleston 1.2.1.3, 1.2.4

We'll discuss Thevenin and Norton equivalent circuits and how to evaluate them, and look at a few examples. Next I'll talk about measurements, and review propagation of errors.

Readings: Eggleston 1.3, 2.1-2.4. Note I will cover some material (LC, RLC) earlier than the text, in a way that I think gives a bit more physical insight.

We'll start to talk about circuits with time-varying currents. I'll review inductors and capacitors, and solutions for transients involving R, L, and C elements in various combinations.

Readings: Eggleston 2.5-2.6

I will introduce phasors, and the very useful complex math tool used to describe oscillatory circuits. Next I'll discuss AC signal sources, and define complex impedance, which is used for the AC-analog of Ohm's Law. As time permits, we'll look at some examples of impedances and use them to understand AC circuit behavior.

Lecture will be held in the lab room.

Readings: Eggleston 2.6-2.7 (although these apply to a switched rather than sinusoidally-driven case). I will be covering material not in the textbook.

We'll review material from last class and discuss the phase angle between voltage and current. Next we'll discuss the phenomenon of resonance (which pops up in many other contexts in physics, also). I'll define the concept of a "transfer function" and we'll look at the behavior of an RLC series circuit as a function of driving frequency. I'll define "Q-factor" for this system and we'll draw some Bode plots. As time permits, I'll start a discussion of four-terminal AC equivalent circuits.

Readings: Eggleston 2.8, 2.9; AC power is referred to in 1.3. There will be some material not in the textbook.

I'll cover three separate topics. First, we'll discuss power in AC circuits. Next, we'll talk about transformers and their uses. I'll finish by introducing some concepts of Fourier analysis, to be continued next time.

Readings: Eggleston 2.8. There will be some material not in the textbook, although the material overlaps with some of Eggleston 2.6.

I will review some of the main concepts of Fourier analysis, including the powerful idea that any periodic function can be written as a sum of sinusoids with different frequencies (the "Fourier components"). Linear circuit networks with frequency-dependent transfer functions then act on the frequency components differently, and transform the shape of the waveform.

We'll look at two example "filters" that can be made of reactive, passive circuit elements: low-pass filters, which pass low-frequency signals, and act as approximate integrators for high-frequency signals, and high-pass filters, which pass high-frequency signals, and act as approximate differentiators for low-frequency signals.

Readings: This material is mostly not in Eggleston.

I will discuss the use of complex frequencies to describe four-terminal-network response. In this context, the poles and zeroes of the network completely describe the response. I'll also discuss some multipole filter networks and sequential RC filter sections.

Readings: This material is mostly not in Eggleston. 4.4.9 (jumping ahead) covers feedback, although in a slightly different context and notation.

I'll cover passive RLC circuits: we'll look at the poles and frequency response of several configurations. Then we'll discuss amplifiers, which basically act as filters with voltage gain. Active circuit elements called operational amplifiers (op-amps) (more on these later) behave as amplifiers. Their stability is greatly improved by negative feedback.

Readings: Eggleston Chapter 3, up to and including 3.1.4

I'll first do a brief review of some relevant ideas from quantum mechanics about atoms and energy levels, and models of conductors, insulators and semiconductors. I'll cover charge carriers and the effect of doping. Then I'll introduce the PN junction and discuss its properties. Finally we'll cover the diode, the most basic PN junction device.

Readings: Eggleston 3.1.5-3.2.6

I'll review the material on diodes, then cover Zener diodes, LEDs and photodiodes. I'll start to discuss some applications of diodes, which we'll pick up next class.

Readings: Chapter 3.2.2, 4.2

I'll cover some common applications of diodes in circuits (rectifiers, clamps, power supplies). As time permits, I will then introduce the transistor, our next major topic.

Readings: Eggleston 4.2, 4.3, 4.4.2, 4.4.3

I'll cover the basics of bipolar transistors. We'll review the physical mechanisms behind npn (and pnp) junctions, and their characteristic behavior when under normal transistor operating conditions, and look at the application of a transistor as a switch. We'll then discuss models for small AC signal operation.

• The midterm will be closed book.
• Calculators are allowed; however you may use them only for simple computations, but not graphing, equation-solving etc.
• You may bring with you a "cheat sheet", on which you may write anything you like on one side of the paper. Include any formulae and physical constants you think you will need. You must hand in your cheat sheet with your test.
• Material to be covered in the test corresponds to the readings listed above through Monday March 6 (although since there's been no homework on it, Monday's material will be covered on the midterm only qualitatively). The "WUN2K" are a good guide to the important concepts. At least one question from the homework will be included on the test.

Readings: Eggleston 4.4, 4.4.1-4.4.4

We'll review small-signal AC equivalents, look at a common simplification, and then review the "black box" model for a 4-terminal circuit such as an amplifier. We'll discuss DC biasing of a transistor amplifier, and go through a "how-to" for treating these circuits in an AC context. We'll then apply the how-to to the common emitter amplifier configuration.

Readings: Eggleston 4.4.5, 4.4.6, 4.4.7

We'll look at two more standard single-transistor circuits, the common collector amplifier (also known as the "emitter follower") and the common base amplifier.

Readings: Eggleston 5.1-5.4

I'll discuss basic operation of FETs (field-effect transistors), and some of the main types: JFETs and MOSFETs. We'll discuss how to make a switch with a FET.

Readings: Eggleston 5.4

We'll cover DC-biasing for FETs, and the FET small-signal model. Then we'll go through amplifiers made with FETs, which are generally analogous to the bipolar versions.

Readings: Eggleston 6.1,6.3

After reviewing some generic material on amplifiers and feedback, I'll cover the basic implementation of a high open-loop gain amplifier, the "op-amp" (operational amplifier). We'll discuss the rules for analyzing circuits with ideal op-amps, and go through some basic op-amp circuits.

Readings: Eggleston 6.4. I will cover some material not in the textbook.

First, I'll go through various parameters describing non-ideal behavior of op-amps, which can be important in practice. The we'll go back to idealizaing op-amps and cover a few selected interesting and useful circuits using op-amps.

Readings: Eggleston 8.1-8.3

We'll move to a new topic: digital circuits. I'll discuss some of the generic features of digital circuitry, and how digital signals can be implemented with transistor switches. We'll then cover binary numbers and Boolean logic.

Readings: Eggleston 8.4-8.7. We will skip Karnaugh maps. There will be some material not in the text book.

After a review on Boolean algebra, covering de Morgan's theorem, I'll go over different kinds of logic gates. We'll discuss how to design circuits to implement logic functions, and I'll show how to make an XOR gate. We'll then cover timing diagrams and "signal races". We'll talk about some of the different logic families (including some information not in your textbook).

Readings: Eggleston 8.8, 8.15

I'll show how to make a digital adder using logic gates, by the methods from last lecture. Then we'll discuss multiplexers and demultiplexers, which allow selection of transmitted bits according to address lines.

Readings: Eggleston 8.9, 8.12

We'll start to discuss digital circuits with memory: latches "store" a data state based on the state of a control line. Flip-flops are bistable circuits that can be "flipped" from one state to another by input lines. We'll discuss clocked flip-flops in various configurations: we'll look at clocked RS and JK flip-flops, and various types of edge-triggered flip-flops. I'll also introduce the concept of registers, and we'll consider the shift register.

Readings: Eggleston 6.2, 8.10, 8.13, 8.14. Some material is not in the textbook.

We'll cover some applications of flip-flops related to timing: one-shots and counters. Then I'll discuss data acquisition in experimental physics generally, and zoom in on a implementation of few specific aspects (comparators, analog-to-digital converters).

• The midterm will be closed book.
• Calculators are allowed; however you may use them only for simple computations, but not graphing, equation-solving etc.
• You may bring with you a "cheat sheet", on which you may write anything you like on both sides of the paper. Include any formulae and physical constants you think you will need. You must hand in your cheat sheet with your test.
• Material to be covered in the test corresponds to the readings listed above from March 2 until the final lecture. Earlier material won't be explicitly tested, but may still be relevant (e.g., Kirchoff's Laws will still come in useful). The "WUN2K" are a good guide to the important concepts. At least one question from the homework will be included on the test.