School of Engineering and Physics

EE212
Lab 6
Name: Avishay Narayan (S11158219)
Alvish Naidu (S11158221)
Akash Ram (S11147022)

AIM
The aim of this lab is to use a pair of BJTs as a Darlington pair amplifier.

THEORY
Write about lab topic (You may refer to week 1 & 2 lecture notes).

INSTRUMENTS
• All equipment mounted on a typical electronics workbench such as power supply,
oscilloscope, signal generator, and multimeter
• Resistors: 1×68kΩ, 1×18kΩ, and 2×1kΩ (or approximate value resistors supplied by the
technicians)
• Capacitors: 1×10μF and 1×0.1μF • BJT: 2×BC109 NPN or equivalent
• PC installed with Circuit Maker
METHODOLOGY
1) To investigate the application of BJTs in a Darlington pair amplifier (common–
emitter amplifier), the circuit shown in Fig. 1 was implemented in Circuit Maker and
the results were noted in Table 1 (the input and internal resistances were
calculated and using the formulas in step 3 where required). For the input voltage, a
signal generator was connected with 300mVp-p at 10kHz
2) Mathematical analysis was performed on the circuit and the results were noted in
Table 1 (using current gain values as determined from the simulation in step 1).
3) The circuit was connected on a breadboard and using the following procedure to the
DC and ac current gains were calculated:
a) The current at emitter of Q2, IE2 was measured and noted
b) The base current for Q1, IB1 was determined. Since this current was very small,
applying nodal analysis where R1 and R2 are connected to get IB1 as follows:

c) The DC current gains were approximated as follows:

d) The re ’ value for each transistor was calculated as follows:

e) The ac current gains were determined by measuring the peak or rms currents at
the base of transistor 1 and the emitter of transistor 2 and using;

1
 Ie2 I
β ac1= βac 2=
√
I b1
∨β ac1=β ac 2= e 2
I b2
f) The input resistance at the base of Q1, Rin(base1) was measured. Rin(base1) is also equal
to:
r e1 ' '
(
R¿(base 1)=β ac 1 β ac 2 )
+ r + R ; R e=R E ∨¿ R L
β ac2 e2 e
4) The other values were measured and calculated as in Table 1.

RESULTS

Simulation Calculation Practical

IE2 491.3mV IE2 480µA IE2 46.74mA
IB1 48.15nA IB1 48nA IB1 467.47nA
BDC1, BDC2 100 BDC1, BDC2 100
re1’ 19.87Ω re1’ 21.19Ω re1’ 20.23Ω
re2’ 50.92Ω re2’ 52.08Ω re2’ 53.47Ω
Ie2 370.2µA Ie2 110µA Ie2 116.35µA
Ib1 38µA rms Ib1 11.4nA Ib1 35.18nA
Bac1, Bac2 100 Bac1, Bac2 100
Rin(base 1) 50kΩ Rin(base 1) 50kΩ Rin(base 1) 40.2KΩ
VC2 9V VC2 9V VC2 9.21V
VC1 9V VC1 9V VC1 9.21V
VE2 773.8mv VE2 0.48V VE2 460mV
VB2 1.4V VB2 1.18V VB2 1.07V
VE1 1.4V VE1 1.18V VE1 1.07V
VB1 1.88V VB1 1.88V VB1 1.92V
Vout 185.1mVrms Vout 57.98V Vout 57.05mV
Vin 212.1mVrms Vin 70.12V Vin 69.19mV
Av 0.87Vrms Av 0.827V Av 1.21V
Rin 14.1kΩ Rin 14.19kΩ Rin 14kΩ
Iout 185.1µA rms Iout 57.02µA Iout 57.02µA
Iin 14.91µA rms Iin 5µA Iin 5.03µA
Ai 17.56 Ai 11.40A Ai 11.33A

2
CALCULATIONS

3
DISCUSSION
Darlington transistors are made of two BJT transistors connected together (connected in an
emitter-follower configuration) where the Vcc is same for both the transistors. Both the
transistors can be converted to a single BJT transistor. The purpose for this configuration is
to obtain a very large current gain which is equal to the current gain of the first multiplied
with the current gain of the second BJT transistor; which in this lab is ………………… A
downfall for the Darlington pairs is a larger saturation voltage. Since both the BJT’s share
the same collector; the saturation is double of that of a single BJT. And now since the
forward bias voltage is larger than the saturation voltage, the saturation voltage of the
Darlington pair is significantly larger. The larger voltage results in more heat being
dissipated and thus higher power dissipation in the device.

CONCLUSION
After conducting the lab, it can be concluded that the Darlington pair circuitry successfully
further amplifies the second current through the second transistor after the first current
has been amplified through the first transistor. This was proven true in all three modes of
analysis which includes, circuit maker software simulation, calculation and finally
measurements directly from the hardware setup.

REFERENCE
[1]"Darlington Pair", YouTube, 2019. [Online]. Available:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC57Pclhk3A. [Accessed: 08- Apr- 2019].
[2]"How A Darlington Pair Transistor Works", Kitronik, 2019. [Online]. Available:
https://www.kitronik.co.uk/blog/how-a-darlington-pair-transistor-works/. [Accessed:
09- Apr- 2019].