Advanced Materials - Lab Intermediate Physics

Ulm University

Institute of Solid State Physics

Operation of a Lock-in Amplifier

Luyang Han

April 23, 2010

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Safety Precations
MAKE SURE THAT YOU UNDERSTAND THIS
SECTION BEFORE YOU ATTEND THE EXPERIMENT!
The optical chopper used in this experiment is a plate rotating at very high
speed. DO NOT try to touch the plate when it is rotating! When the power
source of the chopper is turned off, do not force the plate to stop. Just let it
slows down gradually. DO NOT change any optical setup when the chopper
is rotating.

DO NOT watch directly to the LED light source. This might damage your
eyes.
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1 Introduction
In this experiment the light intensity is measured with a photo diode. The light
intensity will be reduced gradually with series of gray filters and the students will
try to detector the light with different amplification techniques. The aim of the ex-
periment is to let you get familiar with the common electric measurement procedure
used in physics, and the students should learn how to perform precise measurement
with quantification of error and noise in the experiment.

2 Experimental setup
The setup of the experiment is illustrated as below:

Figure 1: Experimental setup. The light is damped with series of gray filters and
modulated with an optical chopper. The signal is detected with a detector. The
signal is further amplified with a normal amplifier and finally with a lock-in amplifier.

The light source used is a simple white light LED with 20mW power. The light
is simply directed to the detector without any focusing. The LED is fixed on a
holder which also holds the gray filters. The gray filter is used to damp the intensity
of the light. Each gray filter will reduced the intensity to 1/8 (NDx8 filter). By
combination of several filters the intensity of the light can be reduced by orders of
magnitude.
The optical chopper is a rotating disc with alternating windows. This gives an
alternating state of light on and off, thus the detector can measure either the
signal from the light source or the background signal. The speed of the rotation is
controlled by light sensors in order to achieve a constant rotation frequency. This
frequency signal is used later as the reference signal of the lock-in amplifier.
The detector is a silicon photodiode with a normal amplifier. The amplification
can be adjusted to suit different output range of the detector. The bandwidth of
this amplifier is 100 Hz. As a result the chopper frequency should be smaller than
100 Hz. The output range of the amplifier is from 0 to 4.7 V. The output signal
should not reach 4.7 V. If so the amplifier is clipped and gives unreasonable result.
The light source, chopper and detector are installed on an optical bench. The
relative heights and orientations of the components can be adjusted.
The signal from the detector is measured with either a precise multimeter or
a lock-in amplifier. Both instruments can be controlled with the computer. A
introduction to the lock-in amplifier is given in the appendix. Please read it carefully
2 4 REPORT AND DATA TREATMENT

and make sure that you understand its principle and the important parameters of
the measurement.

3 Experimental procedure
Before performing the measurement, the optical path has to be aligned. First fix
the detector at one end of the optical bench. Adjust the orientation of the detector
parallel to the bench axis. Connect the detector to the multimeter so that the
signal can be displayed. Then attach the light source to the other end of the optical
bench, adjust the height and orientation of the light source so that the signal from
the detector is maximized. At last install the chopper. Adjust the height of the
chopper so that the rotating plate can block and open the entrance of the detector
completely.
As first step, the light intensity is measured without lock-in amplifier. Set the
normal amplifier to 100 A or 10 A. Put the optical chopper to the open position
and record the intensity using the multimeter. Then turn off the light source and
measure again the intensity as the background. Use the computer to collect enough
data points so that the standard deviation of the signal can be calculated. The real
light signal is the difference between the signal and the background. Estimate the
error of the result. Then the same intensity should be measured with lock-in. Start
the chopper and set the chopper frequency below 100 Hz. Record both the intensity
and the background. Compare the result of the lock-in in respect to the multimeter.
Then apply a filter to attenuate the light intensity. Repeat both the multimeter
and lock-in measurement. Add more and more filters and try to measure. Each filter
will attenuate the light intensity to 1/8. At certain point the light signal would
be indistinguishable from the background. It would be then necessary to reduce
the background. With more then 3 filters it will be difficult to get a reasonable
signal. Try to optimize the measurement parameters of the lock-in and compare the
difference with different parameters.

4 Report and data treatment

Below you find some details of data analysis and questions that should be addressed
in the report. Prepare your report in accordance to the guidelines for lab reports!

1. What is the light intensity measured at each step? What is the error of the
measurement?

2. Compare the signal and relative error from the lock-in and multimeter at the
same intensity. Explain the difference.
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A User manual of the lock-in amplifier