UNIT 1

Analog Signals vs. Digital Signals

A signal is an electromagnetic or electrical current that carries data from one system or network to
another. In electronics, a signal is often a time-varying voltage that is also an electromagnetic wave
carrying information, though it can take on other forms, such as current. There are two main types of
signals used in electronics: analog and digital signals.

Analog Signal
An analog signal is time-varying and generally bound to a range (e.g. +12V to -12V), but there is an
infinite number of values within that continuous range. An analog signal uses a given property of the
medium to convey the signal’s information, such as electricity moving through a wire. In an electrical
signal, the voltage, current, or frequency of the signal may be varied to represent the information. Analog
signals are often calculated responses to changes in light, sound, temperature, position, pressure, or other
physical phenomena.

Digital Signal
A digital signal is a signal that represents data as a sequence of discrete values. A digital signal can only
take on one value from a finite set of possible values at a given time. With digital signals, the physical
quantity representing the information can be many things:
 

 Variable electric current or voltage

 Phase or polarization of an electromagnetic field
 Acoustic pressure
 The magnetization of a magnetic storage media
 

Digital signals are used in all digital electronics, including computing equipment and data transmission
devices.

Analog Electronics

Most of the fundamental electronic components — resistors, capacitors, inductors, diodes, transistors, and
operational amplifiers (op amps) — are all inherently analog components. Analog circuits can be complex
designs with multiple components, or they can be simple, such as two resistors that form a voltage
divider. In general, analog circuits are more difficult to design than digital circuits that accomplish the
same task. It would take a designer who is familiar with analog circuits to design an analog radio receiver,
or an analog battery charger, since digital components have been adopted to simplify those designs.
 
Analog circuits are usually more susceptible to noise, with “noise” being any small, undesired variations
in voltage. Small changes in the voltage level of an analog signal can produce significant errors when
being processed.
 
Analog signals are commonly used in communication systems that convey voice, data, image, signal, or
video information using a continuous signal. There are two basic kinds of analog transmission, which are
both based on how they adapt data to combine an input signal with a carrier signal. The two techniques
are amplitude modulation and frequency modulation. Amplitude modulation (AM) adjusts the amplitude
of the carrier signal. Frequency modulation (FM) adjusts the frequency of the carrier signal. Analog
transmission may be achieved via many methods:

1. Through a twisted pair or coaxial cable

2. Through an optical fiber cable
3. Through radio
4. Through water

Much like the human body uses eyes and ears to capture sensory information, analog circuits use these
methodologies to interface with the real world, and to accurately capture and process these signals in
electronics.

Digital Electronics
Digital circuits commonly use a binary scheme. Although data values are represented by just two states
(0s and 1s), larger values can be represented by groups of binary bits. For example, in a 1-bit system, a 0
represents a data value of 0, and a 1 represents a data value of 1. However, in a 2-bit system, a 00
represents a 0, a 01 represents a 1, a 10 represents a 2, and a 11 represents a 3. In a 16-bit system, the
largest number that can be represented is 216, or 65,536. These groups of bits can be captured either as a
sequence of successive bits or a parallel bus. This allows large streams of data to be processed easily.
 
Unlike analog circuits, most useful digital circuits are synchronous, meaning there is a reference clock to
coordinate the operation of the circuit blocks, so they operate in a predictable manner. Analog electronics
operate asynchronously, meaning they process the signal as it arrives at the input.
 
Most digital circuits use a digital processor to manipulate the data. This can be in the form of a simple
microcontroller (MCU) or a more complex digital signal processor (DSP), which can filter and
manipulate large streams of data such as video.
 
Digital signals are commonly used in communication systems where digital transmission can transfer data
over point-to-point or point-to-multipoint transmission channels, such as copper wires, optical fibers,
wireless communication media, storage media, or computer buses. The transferrable data is represented as
an electromagnetic signal, such as a microwave, radio wave, electrical voltage, or infrared signal.
 
In general, digital circuits are easier to design, but they often cost more than analog circuits that are
intended for the same tasks.

Compact Disc: Data Storage and Retrieving data

A Compact Disc (CD) is an optical disc used to store digital data. CD-ROMs and CD-Rs remain widely
used technologies in the computer industry.CD-ROM drives employ a near-infrared 780 nm laser diode.
The laser beam is directed onto the disc via an opto-electronic tracking module, which then detects
whether the beam has been reflected or scattered.

A CD is made from 1.2 mm thick, almost-pure polycarbonate plastic and weighs 15–20 grams. From the
center outward components are at the center (spindle) hole, the first-transition area (clamping ring), the
clamping area (stacking ring), the second-transition area (mirror band), the information (data) area, and
the rim. Standard CDs have a diameter of 120 mm and can hold up to 80 minutes of uncompressed audio
(700 MB of data). The Mini CD has various diameters ranging from 60 to 80 mm; they are sometimes
used for CD singles or device drivers, storing up to 24 minutes of audio.

What makes a CD

A CD is made up of a polycarbonate plastic known as Polymethyle Meta acrylic. The surface of the CD is
coated with a thin layer of aluminium to make it reflective, and is protected by a film of lacquer that is
normally spin coated directly on top of the reflective layer, upon which the label print is applied.

Data Storage

CD data are stored as a series of tiny indentations known as “pits”, encoded in a spiral track molded into
the top of the polycarbonate layer. The areas between pits are known as “lands”. Each pit is
approximately 100 nm deep by 500 nm wide, and varies from 850 nm to 3.5 µm in length. CD-ROM
capacities are normally expressed with binary prefixes, subtracting the space used for error correction
data. A standard 120 mm, 700 MB CD-ROM can actually hold about 737 M. In comparison, a single-
layer DVD-ROM can hold 4.7 GB of error-protected data.

How CD Retrieve data

CD players use laser technology to read the optically recorded data in the form of Bits and Pits on a CD.
About 20000 or more tracks are found in a CD’s recording surface. The distance between the tracks, the
pitch, is 1.6 µm. A CD is read by focusing a 780 nm wavelength (near infrared) semiconductor laser
through the bottom of the polycarbonate layer. The change in height between pits and lands results in a
difference in intensity in the light reflected. By measuring the intensity change with a photodiode, the
data can be read from the disc. The digital information is defined as the length of pits and distance
between them. The pits and reflective surface represents logic 0 and logic 1. The pits and lands
themselves do not directly represent the zeros and ones of binary data. Instead, Non-return-to-zero,
inverted (NRZI) encoding is used: a change from pit to land or land to pit indicates a one, while no
change indicates a series of zeros. There must be at least two and no more than ten zeros between each
one, which is defined by the length of the pit.

Laser retrieving data

The laser diode- lens assembly forms the optical system of the CD player. The laser diode- lens
assembly is generally known as ‘Eye of CD player”. The lens system focuses the laser beam reflected
onto the CD and reflected back light is collected by the objective lens and transmitted to the detector
system. When a Laser beam is focused on to the CD, because of a difference between the depth of pits
and wavelength of the laser beam, a phase difference develops between the light reflected from pits and
the reflecting surface. The reflected light is then modulated by the receiver system. Before passing to the
detector, the reflected laser beam is polarized and aligned to 90 degrees. The detector is a photo sensor
that produces corresponding electrical signals which are then amplified and separated into corresponding
video and audio signals.

The laser disc

One of the important uses of laser technology is in the development of the laser disc system. Since the
amount of information that may be carried on a laser disc is enormous: one video disc can carry as much
information as a whole set of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. The original laser discs were superficially
similar to a record, in that it was a 30 cm diameter disc with a spiral track running round it; there the
similarity ends, however.

On the laser disc the track is only about 1 mm wide and is made of a series of tiny pits, each pit some
0.16 mm deep and of varying length (Figure 1). These pits are scanned by a fine laser beam only 0.9 mm
in diameter. The reflected light from the flat part of the disc is detected by a photodiode and this
modulated beam is converted into a television picture. The disc is given a thin metallised coating and is
then protected by a layer of plastic through which the laser light can pass. With a constant angular
velocity (CAV) disc about 54 000 television frames may be carried, with some 28 x 10 9 bits of
information per side!

However the modern CD runs at a varying speed so that the pits pass the laser at a constant linear speed.
This means that the motor that spins the disc must run faster when the laser is reading from sections of the
track nearer the centre of the disc than it does nearer to the outside edge.

The CD and the DVD

The compact disc has now been developed and is widely used and the advent of the DVD (Digital Video
Disc) with finer tracks enables even more information to be stored on small discs. For example a CD will
hold up to 750 Mb of information, at present the 5250 pages of the schoolphysics.co.uk site occupies a
mere 500 Mb.

The wavelength of the light from the laser determines the smallest size of the pits and so effectively limits
the amount of information that can be stored of the disc. At present this wavelength is 780 nm but with
the development of lasers emitting blue light the pit sizes could be made smaller thus increasing the
storage capability of the disc. The pits are 0.83 mm long on a CD and only 0.40 mm long on a DVD.

When the laser beam passes over the edge of a pit the laser light is reflected from both the bottom of the
pit and flat surface around them. Interference occurs between the incident and reflected beams. The depth
of the pits is chosen to be one quarter of the wavelength of the light so that the light reflected from the
base of the pit is out of phase with the light reflected from the surrounding surface and so the detector
records a very low intensity. This corresponds to a zero in binary.

When the laser is over a flat surface the reflected beam is strong and this corresponds to a 1 in binary.
Notice that the depth of the pits given at the beginning of the section appears to be less than ź of a
wavelength. This is because the wavelength of the laser light is reduced when passing through the
polycarbonate plastic layer.

The information is recorded on the CD as a digital signal expressed in binary. The original analogue
signal is sampled over 40 000 times a second and a value for each sample stored as a binary number.
Binary numbers are used for these sampled values. Binary numbers use base 2 instead of the more
common decimal base 10. On the binary scale using 8 bits the decimal number 7 is 00000111, 12 is
00001100, 25 is 00011001, 87 is 01010111 and so on. This means that 87 would be a zero followed by a
one, then a zero, another one, another zero and finally three ones.

The big advantage of the digital signal over the analogue one is its purity and lack of background
interference or 'noise'.

Advantages of Digital Communication

As the signals are digitized, there are many advantages of digital communication over analog
communication, such as,
 The effect of distortion, noise, and interference is much less in digital signals as they are less
affected.
 Digital circuits are more reliable.
 Digital circuits are easy to design and cheaper than analog circuits.
 The hardware implementation in digital circuits is more flexible than analog.
 The occurrence of cross-talk is very rare in digital communication.
 The signal is un-altered as the pulse needs a high disturbance to alter its properties, which is very
difficult.
 Signal processing functions such as encryption and compression are employed in digital circuits to
maintain the secrecy of the information.
 The probability of error occurrence is reduced by employing error detecting and error correcting
codes.
 Spread spectrum technique is used to avoid signal jamming.
 Combining digital signals using Time Division Multiplexing TDM is easier than combining analog
signals using Frequency Division Multiplexing FDM.
 The configuring process of digital signals is easier than analog signals.
 Digital signals can be saved and retrieved more conveniently than analog signals.
 Many of the digital circuits have almost common encoding techniques and hence similar devices can
be used for a number of purposes.
 The capacity of the channel is effectively utilized by digital signals.

UNIT 2
Capacitance
Capacitance is the ratio of the amount of electric charge stored on a conductor to a difference in electric
potential. There are two closely related notions of capacitance: self capacitance and mutual
capacitance.  Any object that can be electrically charged exhibits self capacitance. In this case the electric
potential difference is measured between the object and ground. A material with a large self capacitance
holds more electric charge at a given potential difference than one with low capacitance. The notion
of mutual capacitance is particularly important for understanding the operations of the capacitor, one of
the three elementary linear electronic components (along with resistors and inductors). In a typical
capacitor, two conductors are used to separate electric charge, with one conductor being positively
charged and the other negatively charged, but the system having a total charge of zero. The ratio in this
case is the magnitude of the electric charge on either conductor and the potential difference is that
measured between the two conductors.

CCD
CCDs are doped silicon wafers that have been etched with photoactive regions, where these regions can
be used to capture photons. The photoactive regions are often made of metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS)
capacitors and each capacitor behaves like a single photodiode, which in turn causes the capacitor to act
as an individual pixel. These capacitors are then built into arrays to capture photons.

When a CCD captures a photon, a surface charge is generated in the capacitor in the form of a positively
charged hole. Each of the capacitors is separated from each other and this creates a series of quantum
wells (potential wells) to store the charges. This changes the electrical charge of each capacitor and the
electronic charge is moved along the quantum transfer channels between the capacitors under an applied
voltage. The electronics in the CCD can read the different charges and facilitate the movement of charge,
and this enables the positional and intensity values of each pixel to be digitized by the software and an
image to be generated.

A digital camera has almost the same structure as that of a conventional (analog) camera, but the
difference is that a digital camera comes equipped with an image sensor called a CCD. The image sensor
is similar to the film in a conventional camera and captures images as digital information, but how does it
convert images into digital signals?

The CCD stands for a Charge Coupled Device, which is a semiconductor element that converts images
into digital signals. It is approx. 1 cm in both height and width, and consists of small pixels aligned like a
grid. When taking a picture with a camera; the light reflected from the target is transmitted through the
lens, forming an image on the CCD. When a pixel on the CCD receives the light, an electric charge
corresponding to the light intensity is generated. The electric charge is converted into an electric signal to
obtain the light intensity (concentration value) received by each pixel.

This means that each pixel is a sensor that can detect light intensity (photo diode) and a 2 million-pixel
CCD is a collection of 2-million photo diodes. A photoelectric sensor can detect presence/absence of a
target of a specified size in a specified location. A single sensor, however, is not effective for more
complicated applications such as detecting targets in varying positions, detecting and measuring targets of
varying shapes, or performing overall position and dimension measurements. The CCD, which is a
collection of hundreds of thousands to millions of sensors, greatly expands possible applications.

Construction of CCD:
The photoactive region of a CCD is, generally, an epitaxial layer of silicon. It is lightly p doped (usually
with boron) and is grown upon a substrate material, often p++. In buried-channel devices, the type of
design utilized in most modern CCDs, certain areas of the surface of the silicon are ion
implanted with phosphorus, giving them an n-doped designation. This region defines the channel in
which the photogenerated charge packets will travel.
This thin layer (= 0.2–0.3 micron) is fully depleted and the accumulated photogenerated charge is kept
away from the surface. This structure has the advantages of higher transfer efficiency and lower dark
current, from reduced surface recombination. The penalty is smaller charge capacity, by a factor of 2–3
compared to the surface-channel CCD.
The gate oxide, i.e. the capacitor dielectric, is grown on top of the epitaxial layer and substrate.
Later in the process, polysilicon gates are deposited by chemical vapor deposition, patterned
with photolithography, and etched in such a way that the separately phased gates lie perpendicular to the
channels. The channels are further defined by utilization of the LOCOS process to produce the channel
stop region.
Channel stops are thermally grown oxides that serve to isolate the charge packets in one column from
those in another. These channel stops are produced before the polysilicon gates are, as the LOCOS
process utilizes a high-temperature step that would destroy the gate material. The channel stops are
parallel to, and exclusive of, the channel, or "charge carrying", regions.
Channel stops often have a p+ doped region underlying them, providing a further barrier to the electrons
in the charge packets (this discussion of the physics of CCD devices assumes an electron transfer device,
though hole transfer is possible).
The clocking of the gates, alternately high and low, will forward and reverse bias the diode that is
provided by the buried channel (n-doped) and the epitaxial layer (p-doped). This will cause the CCD to
deplete, near the p–n junction and will collect and move the charge packets beneath the gates—and within
the channels—of the device.
CCD manufacturing and operation can be optimized for different uses. The above process describes a
frame transfer CCD. While CCDs may be manufactured on a heavily doped p++ wafer it is also possible
to manufacture a device inside p-wells that have been placed on an n-wafer. This second method,
reportedly, reduces smear, dark current, and infrared and red response. This method of manufacture is
used in the construction of interline-transfer devices.
Another version of CCD is called a peristaltic CCD. In a peristaltic charge-coupled device, the charge-
packet transfer operation is analogous to the peristaltic contraction and dilation of the digestive system.
The peristaltic CCD has an additional implant that keeps the charge away from the silicon/silicon
dioxide interface and generates a large lateral electric field from one gate to the next. This provides an
additional driving force to aid in transfer of the charge packets.

Quantum Efficiency of CCD Cameras

Not every photon falling onto a detector will actually be detected and converted into an electrical impulse.
The percentage of photons that are actually detected is known as the Quantum Efficiency (QE). For
example, the human eye only has a QE of about 20%, photographic film has a QE of around 10%, and the
best CCDs can achieve a QE of over 80%. Quantum efficiency will vary with wavelength.

The Quantum Efficiency (or Spectral Response) of the CCD is governed by the ability of the photons
to be absorbed in the Depletion Region of the detector. It is only in the depletion region that photons are
converted into electronic charges and subsequently can be held by the electric fields which form the pixel.
The charge held in the depletion region is then transferred and measured.
Photons falling on the CCD must first transverse the region dominated by the gate electrodes by which
the applied clocking voltages create the electric fields that form the boundary of the depletion region and
shift charge through the CCD.

The gate structures can absorb or reflect all wavelengths to some extent and as a result reduce the spectral
response below the theoretical maximum of 1 electron charge generated per one photon (in the case of
visible light). The shorter wavelengths (blue light) are particularly absorbing and below ~350nm they
absorb all the photons before they can be detected in the depleted region. Photons with longer
wavelengths (i.e. red photons) have a low probability of absorption by the silicon and can pass through
the depletion region without being detected and hence reduce the red sensitivity of the device. Photons
with wavelengths greater than 1.1µm do not have enough energy to create a free electron charge and so
they cannot be detected with Silicon CCD's.

The various absorption effects combine to define the spectral sensitivity of the CCD. The spectral
sensitivity is typically expressed as a QE Curve, in which the probability to detect a photon of a particular
wavelength is expressed as a percentage. So for example if one in every 10 photons is detected this is
expressed as a QE of 10%. 

Applications in Scientific research

Life Sciences and the Use of Charge-Coupled Devices
Because CCD-based detectors and cameras are used in various microscopes and imaging systems, one of
the big application areas is the life science and medical fields, as this is where these imaging systems are
used the most. The applications in this area are too vast to mention every single one, as these imaging
systems can be used across all aspects of the life sciences and on almost all biomolecules. Some specific
examples include the ability to take images of cells with contrasting enhancements applied, the ability to
collect image samples which have been doped with fluorophores (which cause the sample to fluoresce),
and it is used in advanced X-ray tomography systems to image bone structures and soft tissue samples.

How Can Charge-Coupled Devices be used in Optical Microscopy?

While the above section of life sciences involves CCD-based detectors in microscopes, it should be noted
that the microscopy applications are not just limited to the life science field. Optical microscopes are used
in the fields of food science, chemistry, engineering, and even nanotechnology in some cases (alongside
other applied scientific sub-areas), and there are many CCD-based cameras used in the conventional
bench top microscope. CCDs are used in optical microscopes because they can possess over 10 million
pixels, which enable many samples to be seen clearly, as well as a low noise ratio, ability to image in
color, high sensitivity and a high spatial resolution which all contribute to the high-quality images that are
necessary for modern-day science. One other key feature is that CCDs can rapidly image a sample, which
is necessary for analyzing the microscopic processes that happen in a sample, as well as the sample itself.
In modern-day microscopes, the CCD cameras used often range between 0.1 and 20 MHz.

Using Charge-Coupled Devices (CCD) in Astronomy

As well as looking at the small, CCDs are also used in equipment that can take images of very large, and
very far away celestial bodies. CCDs have been used in astronomy applications since the 1970s. One
example of where this has been used is to take pictures of the Andromeda galaxy (as well as other
celestial bodies in the same vicinity as Andromeda). However, there are not any limits on what can be
imaged using these methods, as stars, planets, meteors and other small objects that reflect light can all be
imaged. CCDs have been used for so long in the astronomy space because they have high quantum
efficiencies and can detect ultra-low levels of noise, which means the quality of the image produced is
much greater than other methods. Many CCD-based technologies can also detect X-rays and infrared (IR)
rays as well, making them ideal for astronomy applications where visible light may be limited but other
electromagnetic waves could be present.