Half wave rectifier circuit

● In half wave rectifiers, a capacitor or inductor is used as a filter to convert the pulsating
DC to pure DC. The output voltage produced by a half wave rectifier is not constant; it
varies with respect to time. In practical applications, a constant DC supply voltage is
needed.
● A half-wave rectifier converts an AC signal to DC by passing either the negative or positive
half-cycle of the waveform and blocking the other. Half-wave rectifiers can be easily
constructed using only one diode, but are less efficient than full-wave rectifiers.
● What is the function of capacitor used in your half wave rectifier circuit experiment why a
capacitor of higher value is preferable?
● In fact the higher the value of the capacitor, the greater the smoothing, and also the less
current that is drawn, the better the smoothing. It should be remembered that the only way
discharge path for the capacitor, apart from internal leakage is through the load to the
rectifier / smoothing system
● Vary the frequency from 10 kHz to 100 Hz.
● Average dc voltage is low, Due to the presence of ripple output voltage is not smooth one.

Full wave rectifier

● Two circuits are used
1. Full wave rectifier using center tapped transformer
2. Full wave bridge rectifier
● half/full -Wastage of power is less,
Average DC output increase significantly,
Wave shape becomes smoother
● Disadvantages are:
Require more space and becomes bulky because of the transformer.
● A rectifier however cannot produce a smooth dc voltage. It produces some ripple in the
output. This ripple can be reduced using filter capacitor across the load.
● Bridge rectifier - 4 diode
● The ratio of the RMS value of an alternating current component in the rectified output to the
average value of rectified output.

The ripple factor is denoted as γ. It is a dimensionless quantity and always has a value less
than unity.

γ = I’rms/Idc = V’rms/Vdc

● Efficiency of full wave rectifier - It is the ratio of DC output power to the AC input
power. The rectifier efficiency of a full-wave rectifier is 81.2%.
 Zener diode
The diodes we have studied before do not operate in the breakdown region because this may
damage them. A Zener diode is different; it is a silicon diode that the manufacturer has optimized
for operation in the breakdown region. It is used to build voltage regulator circuits that hold the
load voltage almost constant despite large change in line voltage and load resistance.

● The Zener diode may have a breakdown voltage from about 2 to 200 V. These diodes can
operate in any of the three regions: forward, leakage and breakdown.
● In the forward region it works as an ordinary diode.
In the leakage region (between zero and breakdown) it has only a small reverse saturation
current.
• In the breakdown it has a sharp knee, followed by an almost vertical increase
in current without changing the voltage.
• The voltage is almost constant, approximately equal to Vz over most of the breakdown
region.

BJT
Current controlled device
● A biasing is required to activate the transistor and prevents it to either to saturation mode
or cut-off mode.

● Common Base Configuration – has Voltage Gain but no Current

Gain.
● Common Emitter Configuration – has both Current and Voltage
Gain.
● Common Collector Configuration – has Current Gain but no
Voltage Gain.

Operation of Bipolar Junction Transistor

There are three operating regions of a bipolar junction transistor:

● Active region: The region in which the transistors operate as an amplifier.

● Saturation region: The region in which the transistor is fully on and operates as a switch such
that collector current is equal to the saturation current.
● Cut-off region: The region in which the transistor is fully off and collector current is equal to
zero.

1.Center Tap Transformer: A center tapped transformer is also known as the ” two
phase three wire” transformer. These transformers work best in rectifier circuits and
step down actions as it provides two output cycles for a single input cycle. For example,
a V volt transformer measures V/2 Volts each across its two half windings made by
center tapping it.

Factors Center tapped full wave rectifier Bridge rectifier

Definition Center tapped rectifier as the No center tapped transformer is

name suggests requires a center required in a bridged rectifier.
tapped transformer (secondary
winding).

Number of Center tapped rectifier uses only Bridge rectifier uses four diodes in
diodes two diodes in its circuit. its circuit.

Peak inverse The peak inverse voltage (PIV)
voltage of the diode in the center tapped
full wave rectifier is twice the
transformer secondary terminal
voltage.
Peak inverse voltage PIV of the
diode is equal to the transformer
secondary voltage. Thus this type
of rectifier can be used for high
voltage application.

Transformer The transformer utilization factor The transformer utilization factor

Utilization (TUF) is equal to 0.672 (TUF) is equal to 0.810 for the
Factor (TUF) bridge rectifier.

Voltage drop Voltage drop across the two The voltage drop across the 4
across diodes of the center tapped diodes of the bridge rectifier is more
diodes rectifier is less when compared than the voltage drop across the
to bridge rectifier. center tapped rectifier.
Size Of The transformer required in the
Transformer bridge rectifier is smaller than
that required in the center
tapped rectifier in terms of kVA
rating.
The transformer required in the
bridge rectifier is smaller than that
required in the center tapped
rectifier in terms of kVA rating.

Economic Center tapped transformer is Bridge rectifier is economically

efficiency economically efficient since it inefficient since it uses four diodes
uses only two diodes in its in its circuit.
circuit.

● C828- npn transistor

●
● CRO- A Cathode Ray Oscilloscope (CRO) is an instrument generally used in a
laboratory to display, measure and analyze various waveforms of electrical
circuits.
● IN4007 diode

● 555 timer
● CL100
NPN transistor
BC558

● LM741
●
● A ceramic capacitor is a fixed-value capacitor where the ceramic material
acts as the dielectric.

● A clipping circuit consists of linear elements like resistors and non-linear

elements like diodes or transistors, but it does not contain energy-storage
elements like capacitors. Clipping circuits are also called slicers or amplitude
selectors.
● A clipper circuit clips or removes a portion of an AC signal.
● A clamper circuit shifts the DC level of the waveform
● Diode clipping circuit also known as diode limiter.
Positive Bias Diode

Negative Bias Diode

Zener Diode Clipping

Diode Clipping Circuits are used to eliminate amplitude noise or voltage

spikes, voltage regulation or to produce new waveforms from an existing
signal such as squaring off the peaks of a sinusoidal waveform to obtain a
rectangular waveform as seen above.
The most common application of a “diode clipping” is as a flywheel or free-
wheeling diode connected in parallel across an inductive load to protect the
switching transistor form reverse voltage transients.

Diode
Diode, two terminal electrical component, allows current only when in forward biased position.

1N4001 to 1N4007: acts as Rectifier

1N4148, 1N914: signal diode

LED
LED are pn junction that emit light when a current flows through them.

We can create a PN junction diode by doping pentavalent/donor doping in one side and
trivalent/ acceptor doping in one side.

Pentavalent doping = Bismuth, Arsenic, Antimony

Trivalent= Indium, Gallium, Aluminium, Boron

Silicon diode= 0.7 v

germanium= 0.3 v

Types of diode
1. Zener diode
 2. PN junction diode
3. PIN diode
4. LED
5. Avalanche diode
6. Photodiode

Conduction band
The conduction band is the band of electron orbitals that electrons can jump up into
from the valence band when excited. When the electrons are in these orbitals, they have
enough energy to move freely in the material. This movement of electrons creates an
electric current.

Valence band
The valence band is simply the outermost electron orbital of an atom of any specific
material that electrons actually occupy. The energy difference between the highest
occupied energy state of the valence band and the lowest unoccupied state of the
conduction band is called the band gap and is indicative of the electrical conductivity of
a materia

Energy band
In solids, several bands of energy levels are formed due to the intermixing of atoms in solids. We call
these set of energy levels as energy bands.

Semiconductor
A semiconductor is an element or compound that conducts electricity under some
conditions but not others. This property of being neither a good insulator nor a good
conductor makes semiconductors useful for controlling electric current. The electrical
conductivity of a semiconductor depends on a variety of conditions, including applied
voltage or current, or the intensity of the infrared radiation, ultraviolet radiation, or visible
light on the surface.[2] This is why semiconductors are used to make photovoltaic
systems
 Transistors
A transistor is a three terminal semiconductor device used for the purpose of amplification and
rectification.

A transistor is an electronic component that is used in circuits to either amplify or switch electrical
signals or power, allowing it to be used in a wide array of electronic devices. A transistor consists of
two PN diodes connected back to back. It has three terminals namely emitter, base and collector.

● BC857 PNP TRANSISTOR

● BC549 NPN TRANSISTOR

 ● BC558 PNP TRANSISTOR

● BC548 NPN TRANSISTOR

BC557 PNP TRANSISTOR

 ● BC547 TRANSISTOR

Emitter – This segment is on the left side of the transistor. It is moderately sized and heavily
doped.
Base – This segment is at the center of the transistor. It is thin and lightly doped.
Collector – This segment is on the right side of the transistor. It is larger than the emitter and
is moderately doped.

Base-emitter junction is forward biased

– There is a flow of electrons (holes) from the emitter to base and holes (electrons)from
the base to emitter; however since the concentration of emitter electrons (holes) are
greater than the base holes (electrons), this current is primarily made of electrons (holes)
– These emitter electrons (holes) become minority carriers in the base; however, since
the base is narrow very little electron-hole recombination occurs in the base and these
electrons (holes) are drawn towards the collector-base junction

Collector-base junction is reverse biased

When these emitter electrons (holes) reach the collector-base junction, they are pulled
across the junction into the collector by the electric field due to the depletion region ions.
field effect transistor is a unipolar device.

What is a bipolar junction transistor?

The bipolar junction transistor is a bipolar current controlled device that consists of two PN junction
for its function.

Bipolar Junction Transistor

A bipolar junction transistor, shortly termed as BJT is a current controlled device that consists of
two PN junction for its function. It is configured in two ways as NPN and PNP. Among the two, NPN
transistor is the most preferred for the sake of convenience. The NPN transistor is made by placing
a p-type material between two n-type materials. Likewise, the PNP transistor is made by placing an
n-type material between two p-type materials.

Field Effect Transistor

A field-effect transistor shortly termed as FET is a voltage-controlled device, unlike BJT which is a
current controlled device. The FET is a unipolar device, which means that it is made using either p-
type or n-type material as the main substrate. One of the many of its advantages is that it has a very
high input impedance, which is in the order of Mega Ohms. It has many other advantages such as
low heat dissipation and low power consumption.

Transistor as an Amplifier and a Switch

Amplifier: in a hearing aid, in the microphone
Switch: a memory chip includes hundreds of transistors, each of which can be switched on or off
individually. Since every transistor can be in two separate states, it can store two numbers zero and
one separately.
Applications of Transistor

Heat-operated switch: Thermistor, used in fire alarm system

Integrated Circuits:
● Integrated circuits consist of resistors, transistors, diodes, and capacitors combined with a
silicon wafer-thin chip, known as the microchip.
● Integrated circuits consume less electrical energy, occupy a small space that reduces the
circuit’s size, and can be built at a low cost.
●

Some types of transistors are listed below:

● Bipolar Junction Transistor
● Diffusion Transistor
● Avalanche Transistor
● Schottky Transistor
● Darlington Transistor
● Heterojunction Bipolar Transistor
● Field Effect Transistor
● Junction FET Transistor
● Dual Gate MOSFET
● Multiple-Emitter Transistor

Name a transistor that is used in mobile and LASER drivers as power

amplifiers.
Heterojunction bipolar transistors are used in mobile and LASER drivers as power amplifiers

Which transistor has the ability to switch high currents in less than
nanosecond transition times?
Avalanche transistors have the ability to switch high currents in less than nanosecond transition
times.

What is a field-effect transistor?

The field-effect transistor (FET) is a type of transistor that uses an electric field to control the current
flow in a semiconductor.

● Darlington Transistors have a much higher ability to gain current. Because of its sensitivity, it
can pick currents from human skin, which is why it is used to create a touch-sensitive button.
 ● Schottky Transistors divert high input currents and prevent the transistors from saturating.
● Multiple Emitter Transistors are used in Transistor-Transistor Logic (TTL) and NAND logic
gates.

Operational amplifier
an Operational amplifier is a very high gain DC differential amplifier that
uses one or more external feedback networks to control its response and
characteristics.
Offset null voltage definition Input Offset Voltage: Input offset voltage is
defined as the voltage that must be applied between the two input terminals of
an op amp to null or bring the output voltage to zero. The offset null effectively
applies this voltage to ensure that the offset is removed from the output.

Op amp pin diagram:

operational Amplifier General Conditions

• The Operational Amplifier, or Op-amp as it is most commonly

called, can be an ideal amplifier with infinite Gain and Bandwidth
when used in the Open-loop mode with typical DC gains of well over
100,000 or 100dB.
• The basic Op-amp construction is of a 3-terminal device, with 2-
inputs and 1-output, (excluding power connections).
• An Operational Amplifier operates from either a dual positive ( +V )
and an corresponding negative ( -V ) supply, or they can operate from
a single DC supply voltage.
• The two main laws associated with the operational amplifier are that
it has an infinite input impedance, ( Z = ∞ ) resulting in “No current
 flowing into either of its two inputs” and zero input offset voltage
V1 = V2.
• An operational amplifier also has zero output impedance, ( Z = 0 ).
• Op-amps sense the difference between the voltage signals applied
to their two input terminals and then multiply it by some pre-
determined Gain, ( A ).
• This Gain, ( A ) is often referred to as the amplifiers “Open-loop
Gain”.
• Closing the open loop by connecting a resistive or reactive
component between the output and one input terminal of the op-amp
greatly reduces and controls this open-loop gain.

4 types of gain in OPAMPs:

Voltage gain – Voltage in and voltage out

Current gain – Current in and Current out

Transconductance – Voltage in and Current out

Trans resistance – Current in and voltage out

Equivalent Circuit of an Ideal Operational Amplifier

Open Loop Gain, (Avo)

Infinite

Input impedance, (ZIN)

Infinite – Input impedance is the ratio of input voltage to input

current and is assumed to be infinite to prevent any current flowing
from the source supply into the amplifiers input circuitry ( IIN = 0 ).
Real op-amps have input leakage currents from a few pico-amps to
a few milli-amps

Output impedance, (ZOUT)

Zero– The output impedance of the ideal operational amplifier

is assumed to be zero acting as a perfect internal voltage
source with no internal resistance so that it can supply as
much current as necessary to the load. This internal
resistance is effectively in series with the load thereby
reducing the output voltage available to the load. Real op-
amps have output impedances in the 100-20kΩ range.
Bandwidth, (BW)

Infinite

Offset Voltage, (VIO)

Zero – The amplifiers output will be zero when the voltage

difference between the inverting and the non-inverting inputs
is zero, the same or when both inputs are grounded. Real op-
amps have some amount of output offset voltage.

Offset null voltage definition Input Offset Voltage: Input offset voltage is defined as the voltage that
must be applied between the two input terminals of an op amp to null or bring the output voltage to
zero. The offset null effectively applies this voltage to ensure that the offset is removed from the
output. What is offset null in op amp 741? The offset null pin in 741 IC is mainly used to remove the
voltage difference between the inverting and non inverting pins when no input is applied to these
pins but the op amp is supplied with +Vcc and -Vcc.
 Fig: voltage follower

Fig: voltage comparator

Negative feedback: Negative feedback is used to stabilize the gain. By using a negative
feedback, the closed-loop gain can be determined via external feedback components
that can have higher accuracy compared to the operational amplifier’s internal
components. This is because the internal op amp components may vary substantially
due to process shifts, temperature changes, voltage changes, and other factors.
Applications of op-amp:
1. Mathematical operation: a. Addition, b. Subtraction , c. Integration, d. Differentiation
2. Active filters
3. Oscillators
4. Waveform convertors
5. ADC to DAC converter
6. Volatge follower
7. Voltage comparator

What is output and input impedance?

The output impedance refers to the impedance, or opposition to current flow, of the
component that often bears an electrical source to "drive" a load component.
Meanwhile, the input impedance refers to the load component's opposition to current
flowing in from the electrical source.

Limitations of op amp
the limitations to using operational amplifiers include the fact they are analog circuits, and require a
designer that understands analog fundamentals such as loading, frequency response, and stability.
It is not uncommon to design a seemingly simple op amp circuit, only to turn it on and find that it is
oscillating. Due to some of the key parameters discussed earlier, the designer must understand how
those parameters play into their design, which typically means the designer must have a moderate
to high level of analog design experience.

Specifications of IC 741C
Virtual Ground
As the name indicates it is virtual, not real ground. For some purposes we can consider
it as equivalent to ground. In opamps the term virtual ground means that the voltage
at that particular node is almost equal to ground voltage (0V). It is not physically
connected to ground. This concept is very useful in analysis of opamp circuits and it will
make a lot of calculations very simple.
Slew rate:
Slew rate (SR) is defined as the maximum rate of change in output voltage per
unit of time, and is expressed in volts per μ-seconds. The slew rate can be
expressed as:

Slew rate indicates how rapidly the output of an op-amp changes in response to
changes in the input frequency. The slew rate changes with change in voltage
gain and is normally specified at unity (+1) gain. The slew rate of an op-amp is
fixed. Therefore, if the slope requirements of the output signal are greater than
the slew rate, then distortion occurs. Thus, slew rate is one of the important
factors in selecting the op-amp for ac applications; particularly at relatively high
frequencies
CMRR: the CMRR is defined as the ratio of the differential voltage gain Ad to
the common-mode voltage gain Acm. Therefore:

Supply Voltage Rejection Ratio (SVRR)

The change in an op-amp’s input offset voltage Vio caused by a variation in one
supply voltage when the other supply voltages remain constant in the circuit is
called the supply voltage rejection ratio (SVRR). It is also referred to as power
supply rejection ratio (PSRR) or power supply sensitivity (PSS). These are expressed
in terms of microvolts per volt or in decibels. If we denote the change in supply
voltages by Δ V, and the corresponding change in the input offset voltage by ΔVio,
then SVRR can be defined as:
Instrumentation amplifier:

1. Very low DC offset

2. Low drift
3. Low noise
4. High CMRR
5. High input impedance

Application:

1. Measuring and extracting weak signal from noise environment

2. Used in biomedical sensors: blood pressure sensors, ultrasound transducer, thermocouple
3. Used in navigation, radar
4. High speed signal conditioning, for video data acquisition and video imaging
5. Data acquisition

Drift

Filter:
A filter is a circuit that is designed to pass signals with desired frequencies and reject or
attenuate others.

Four types of filters:

Low pass
High pass
Band pass
Band stop

In the field of electronics, there are many practical applications for filters. Examples include:

● Radio communications: Filters enable radio receivers to only "see" the desired signal
while rejecting all other signals (assuming that the other signals have different
frequency content).
● DC power supplies: Filters are used to eliminate undesired high frequencies (i.e.,
noise) that are present on AC input lines. Additionally, filters are used on a power
supply's output to reduce ripple.
● Audio electronics: A crossover network is a network of filters used to channel low-
frequency audio to woofers, mid-range frequencies to midrange speakers, and high-
frequency sounds to tweeters.
● Analog-to-digital conversion: Filters are placed in front of an ADC input to minimize
aliasing.

Passive filters include only passive components—resistors, capacitors, and inductors. In

contrast, active filters use active components, such as op-amps, in addition to resistors and
capacitors, but not inductors
Ripple factor
Ripple is the fluctuating AC component present in rectified DC output.

What is Ripple Factor? The ripple factor is defined as. The ratio of the RMS value of an
alternating current component in the rectified output to the average value of rectified
output. The ripple factor is denoted as γ. It is a dimensionless quantity and always has a
value less than unity.
DC power supply
A DC power supply is a type of power supply that gives direct current (DC) voltage to
power a device.

DC Power supply unit circuit diagram:

BJT fixed biasing

Rectification
The second step of the AC-DC voltage conversion process is rectification. It is the step
in which the AC voltage is converted into the corresponding DC quantity.

Voltage regulator
A voltage regulator is a circuit that creates and maintains a fixed output voltage, irrespective of
changes to the input voltage or load conditions.
What is output and input impedance?

The output impedance refers to the impedance, or opposition to current flow, of the
component that often bears an electrical source to "drive" a load component.
Meanwhile, the input impedance refers to the load component's opposition to current
flowing in from the electrical source.