LC circuit

Definition

A resonant, or tuned, circuit combines an inductor and capacitor (or mechanical equivalents
such as a crystal or MEMS oscillator) to make a circuit that is responsive to a frequency.
Depending on the configuration, the circuit can have a high or low impedance at the resonant
frequency and operate as bandpass or band stop filter, or an oscillator.

It may be called an LC or LRC circuit because of the inductive (L), resistive (R), and capacitive (C)
components used.

An older name is "tank circuit," because its operation is analogous to a tank in a fluid system, in
which the dimensions of the tank define the natural frequency observed when fluid is pulsed
through the tank.

Synonyms

tank circuit

tuned circuit

Resonant Circuit

LRC circuit

Oscillators convert a DC input (the supply voltage) into an AC output (the waveform), which can
have a wide range of different wave shapes and frequencies that can be either complicated in
nature or simple sine waves depending upon the application.

Oscillators are also used in many pieces of test equipment producing either sinusoidal sine
waves, square, sawtooth or triangular shaped waveforms or just a train of pulses of a variable or
constant width. LC Oscillators are commonly used in radio-frequency circuits because of their
good phase noise characteristics and their ease of implementation.

An Oscillator is basically an Amplifier with “Positive Feedback”, or regenerative feedback

(in-phase) and one of the many problems in electronic circuit design is stopping amplifiers from
oscillating while trying to get oscillators to oscillate.

Oscillators work because they overcome the losses of their feedback resonator circuit either in
the form of a capacitor, inductor or both in the same circuit by applying DC energy at the
required frequency into this resonator circuit. In other words, an oscillator is a an amplifier
which uses positive feedback that generates an output frequency without the use of an input
signal.

Thus Oscillators are self sustaining circuits generating an periodic output waveform at a precise
frequency and for any electronic circuit to operate as an oscillator, it must have the following
three characteristics.

 Some form of Amplification

 Positive Feedback (regeneration)

 A Frequency determine feedback network

An oscillator has a small signal feedback amplifier with an open-loop gain equal too or slightly
greater than one for oscillations to start but to continue oscillations the average loop gain must
return to unity. In addition to these reactive components, an amplifying device such as an
Operational Amplifier or Bipolar Transistor is required.

Unlike an amplifier there is no external AC input required to cause the Oscillator to work as the
DC supply energy is converted by the oscillator into AC energy at the required frequency.
Oscillator Resonance

When a constant voltage but of varying frequency is applied to a circuit consisting of an inductor,
capacitor and resistor the reactance of both the Capacitor/Resistor and Inductor/Resistor circuits
is to change both the amplitude and the phase of the output signal as compared to the input
signal due to the reactance of the components used.

At high frequencies the reactance of a capacitor is very low acting as a short circuit while the
reactance of the inductor is high acting as an open circuit. At low frequencies the reverse is true,
the reactance of the capacitor acts as an open circuit and the reactance of the inductor acts as a
short circuit.

Between these two extremes the combination of the inductor and capacitor produces a “Tuned”
or “Resonant” circuit that has a Resonant Frequency, ( ƒr ) in which the capacitive and inductive
reactance’s are equal and cancel out each other, leaving only the resistance of the circuit to
oppose the flow of current. This means that there is no phase shift as the current is in phase
with the voltage. Consider the circuit below.

The charged capacitor is now connected in parallel across the inductive coil so the capacitor
begins to discharge itself through the coil. The voltage across C starts falling as the current
through the coil begins to rise.

This rising current sets up an electromagnetic field around the coil which resists this flow of
current. When the capacitor, C is completely discharged the energy that was originally stored in
the capacitor, C as an electrostatic field is now stored in the inductive coil, L as an
electromagnetic field around the coils windings.

As there is now no external voltage in the circuit to maintain the current within the coil, it starts
to fall as the electromagnetic field begins to collapse. A back emf is induced in the coil (e =
-Ldi/dt) keeping the current flowing in the original direction.

This current charges up capacitor, C with the opposite polarity to its original charge. C continues
to charge up until the current reduces to zero and the electromagnetic field of the coil has
collapsed completely.
The energy originally introduced into the circuit through the switch, has been returned to the
capacitor which again has an electrostatic voltage potential across it, although it is now of the
opposite polarity. The capacitor now starts to discharge again back through the coil and the
whole process is repeated. The polarity of the voltage changes as the energy is passed back and
forth between the capacitor and inductor producing an AC type sinusoidal voltage and current
waveform.

This process then forms the basis of an LC oscillators tank circuit and theoretically this cycling
back and forth will continue indefinitely. However, things are not perfect and every time energy
is transferred from the capacitor, C to inductor, L and back from L to C some energy losses occur
which decay the oscillations to zero over time.

This oscillatory action of passing energy back and forth between the capacitor, C to the inductor,
L would continue indefinitely if it was not for energy losses within the circuit. Electrical energy is
lost in the DC or real resistance of the inductors coil, in the dielectric of the capacitor, and in
radiation from the circuit so the oscillation steadily decreases until they die away completely and
the process stops.

Then in a practical LC circuit the amplitude of the oscillatory voltage decreases at each half cycle
of oscillation and will eventually die away to zero. The oscillations are then said to be “damped”
with the amount of damping being determined by the quality or Q-factor of the circuit.

The resonance effect of the LC circuit has many important applications in signal processing and
communications systems.

The most common application of tank circuits is tuning radio transmitters and receivers. For
example, when we tune a radio to a particular station, the LC circuits are set at resonance for
that particular carrier frequency.

A series resonant circuit provides voltage magnification.

A parallel resonant circuit provides current magnification.

A parallel resonant circuit can be used as load impedance in output circuits of RF amplifiers. Due
to high impedance, the gain of amplifier is maximum at resonant frequency.

Both parallel and series resonant circuits are used in induction heating.

LC circuits behave as electronic resonators, which are a key component in many applications:

Amplifiers

Oscillators

Filters
Tuners

Mixers

Foster-Seeley discriminator

Contactless cards

Graphics tablets

Electronic article surveillance

LC Oscillators Summary
The basic conditions required for an LC oscillator resonant tank circuit are
given as follows.
 For oscillations to exist an oscillator circuit MUST contain a reactive
(frequency-dependant) component either an “Inductor”, (L) or a “Capacitor”, (C) as well
as a DC power source.
 In a simple inductor-capacitor, LC circuit, oscillations become damped over time
due to component and circuit losses.
 Voltage amplification is required to overcome these circuit losses and provide
positive gain.
 The overall gain of the amplifier must be greater than one, unity.
 Oscillations can be maintained by feeding back some of the output voltage to the
tuned circuit that is of the correct amplitude and in-phase, (0o).
 Oscillations can only occur when the feedback is “Positive” (self-regeneration).
 The overall phase shift of the circuit must be zero or 360o so that the output signal
from the feedback network will be “in-phase” with the input signal.
TRANSFORMERS

One of the main reasons that we use alternating AC voltages and currents in our homes and
workplace’s is that AC supplies can be easily generated at a convenient voltage, transformed
(hence the name transformer) into much higher voltages and then distributed around the country
using a national grid of pylons and cables over very long distances.
The reason for transforming the voltage to a much higher level is that higher distribution voltages
implies lower currents for the same power and therefore lower I2*R losses along the networked
grid of cables. These higher AC transmission voltages and currents can then be reduced to a much
lower, safer and usable voltage level where it can be used to supply electrical equipment in our
homes and workplaces, and all this is possible thanks to the basic Voltage Transformer.

The Voltage Transformer can be thought of as an electrical component rather than an electronic
component. A transformer basically is very simple static (or stationary) electro-magnetic passive
electrical device that works on the principle of Faraday’s law of induction by converting electrical
energy from one value to another.
The transformer does this by linking together two or more electrical circuits using a common
oscillating magnetic circuit which is produced by the transformer itself. A transformer operates
on the principals of “electromagnetic induction”, in the form of Mutual Induction.
Mutual induction is the process by which a coil of wire magnetically induces a voltage into
another coil located in close proximity to it. Then we can say that transformers work in the
“magnetic domain”, and transformers get their name from the fact that they “transform” one
voltage or current level into another.
Transformers are capable of either increasing or decreasing the voltage and current levels of their
supply, without modifying its frequency, or the amount of electrical power being transferred from
one winding to another via the magnetic circuit.
A single phase voltage transformer basically consists of two electrical coils of wire, one called the
“Primary Winding” and another called the “Secondary Winding”. For this tutorial we will define
the “primary” side of the transformer as the side that usually takes power, and the “secondary” as
the side that usually delivers power. In a single-phase voltage transformer the primary is usually
the side with the higher voltage.
These two coils are not in electrical contact with each other but are instead wrapped together
around a common closed magnetic iron circuit called the “core”. This soft iron core is not solid
but made up of individual laminations connected together to help reduce the core’s losses.
 The two coil windings are electrically isolated from each other but are magnetically linked
through the common core allowing electrical power to be transferred from one coil to the other.
When an electric current passed through the primary winding, a magnetic field is developed
which induces a voltage into the secondary winding as shown.

Single Phase Voltage Transformer

In other words, for a transformer there is no direct electrical connection between the two coil
windings, thereby giving it the name also of an Isolation Transformer. Generally, the primary
winding of a transformer is connected to the input voltage supply and converts or transforms the
electrical power into a magnetic field. While the job of the secondary winding is to convert this
alternating magnetic field into electrical power producing the required output voltage as shown.

Transformer Construction (single-phase)

Where:

 VP - is the Primary Voltage

 VS - is the Secondary Voltage
 NP - is the Number of Primary Windings
 NS - is the Number of Secondary Windings
 Φ (phi) - is the Flux Linkage

Notice that the two coil windings are not electrically connected but are only linked magnetically.
A single-phase transformer can operate to either increase or decrease the voltage applied to the
primary winding. When a transformer is used to “increase” the voltage on its secondary winding
with respect to the primary, it is called a Step-up transformer. When it is used to “decrease” the
voltage on the secondary winding with respect to the primary it is called a Step-down
transformer.
However, a third condition exists in which a transformer produces the same voltage on its
secondary as is applied to its primary winding. In other words, its output is identical with respect
to voltage, current and power transferred. This type of transformer is called an “Impedance
Transformer” and is mainly used for impedance matching or the isolation of adjoining electrical
circuits.
The difference in voltage between the primary and the secondary windings is achieved by
changing the number of coil turns in the primary winding ( NP ) compared to the number of coil
turns on the secondary winding ( NS ).
As the transformer is basically a linear device, a ratio now exists between the number of turns of
the primary coil divided by the number of turns of the secondary coil. This ratio, called the ratio
of transformation, more commonly known as a transformers “turns ratio”, ( TR ). This turns ratio
value dictates the operation of the transformer and the corresponding voltage available on the
secondary winding.
It is necessary to know the ratio of the number of turns of wire on the primary winding compared
to the secondary winding. The turns ratio, which has no units, compares the two windings in
order and is written with a colon, such as 3:1 (3-to-1). This means in this example, that if there
are 3 volts on the primary winding there will be 1 volt on the secondary winding, 3 volts-to-1 volt.
Then we can see that if the ratio between the number of turns changes the resulting voltages must
also change by the same ratio, and this is true.
Transformers are all about “ratios”. The ratio of the primary to the secondary, the ratio of the
input to the output, and the turns ratio of any given transformer will be the same as its voltage
ratio. In other words for a transformer: “turns ratio = voltage ratio”. The actual number of turns of
wire on any winding is generally not important, just the turns ratio and this relationship is given
as:

A Transformers Turns Ratio

Assuming an ideal transformer and the phase angles: ΦP ≡ ΦS

Note that the order of the numbers when expressing a transformers turns ratio value is very
important as the turns ratio 3:1 expresses a very different transformer relationship and output
voltage than one in which the turns ratio is given as: 1:3.
Transistor Basics:
A transistor is a three terminal device. Namely,

Base: This is responsible for activating the transistor.

Collector: This is the positive lead.
Emitter: This is the negative lead.
The basic idea behind a transistor is that it lets you control the flow of current through
one channel by varying the intensity of a much smaller current that’s flowing through a
second channel.

Types of Transistors:

There are two types of transistors in present; they are bipolar junction transistor (BJT), field
effect transistors (FET). A small current is flowing between the base and the emitter; base
terminal can control a larger current flow between the collector and the emitter terminals. For a
field-effect transistor, it also has the three terminals, they are gate, source, and drain, and a
voltage at the gate can control a current between source and drain.

Bipolar Junction Transistor:

A Bipolar Junction Transistor (BJT) has three terminals connected to three doped semiconductor
regions. It comes with two types, P-N-P and N-P-N.

P-N-P transistor, consisting of a layer of N-doped semiconductor between two layers of P-doped
material. The base current entering in the collector is amplified at its output.

That is when PNP transistor is ON when its base is pulled low relative to the emitter. The arrows
of PNP transistor symbol the direction of current flow when the device is in forward active
mode.
N-P-N transistor consisting a layer of P-doped semiconductor between two layers of N-doped
material. By amplifying current the base we get the high collector and emitter current.

That is when NPN transistor is ON when its base is pulled low relative to the emitter. When the
transistor is in ON state, current flow is in between the collector and emitter of the transistor.
Based on minority carriers in P-type region the electrons moving from emitter to collector. It
allows the greater current and faster operation; because of this reason most bipolar transistors
used today are NPN.

Field Effect Transistor (FET):

The field-effect transistor is a unipolar transistor, N-channel FET or P-channel FET are used for
conduction. The three terminals of FET are source, gate and drain. The basic n-channel and
p-channel FET’s are shown above. For an n-channel FET, the device is constructed from n-type
material. Between the source and drain then-type material acts as a resistor.

This transistor controls the positive and negative carriers with respect to holes or electrons. FET
channel is formed by moving of positive and negative charge carriers. The channel of FET which
is made by silicon.

There are many types of FET’s, MOSFET, JFET and etc. The applications of FET’s are in low noise
amplifier, buffer amplifier and analog switch.

Bipolar Junction Transistor Biasing

Transistors are the most important semiconductor active devices essential for almost all circuits.
They are used as electronic switches, amplifiers etc in circuits. Transistors may be NPN, PNP, FET,
JFET etc which have different functions in electronic circuits. For the proper working of the
circuit, it is necessary to bias the transistor using resistor networks. Operating point is the point
on the output characteristics that shows the Collector-Emitter voltage and the Collector current
with no input signal. The Operating point is also known as the Bias point or Q-Point (Quiescent
point).

Biasing is referred to provide resistors, capacitors or supply voltage etc to provide proper
operating characteristics of the transistors. DC biasing is used to obtain DC collector current at a
particular collector voltage. The value of this voltage and current are expressed in terms of the
Q-Point. In a transistor amplifier configuration, the IC (max) is the maximum current that can
flow through the transistor and VCE (max) is the maximum voltage applied across the device. To
work the transistor as an amplifier, a load resistor RC must be connected to the collector. Biasing
set the DC operating voltage and current to the correct level so that the AC input signal can be
properly amplified by the transistor. The correct biasing point is somewhere between the fully
ON or fully OFF states of the transistor. This central point is the Q-Point and if the transistor is
properly biased, the Q-point will be the central operating point of the transistor. This helps the
output current to increase and decrease as the input signal swings through the complete cycle.
For setting the correct Q-Point of the transistor, a collector resistor is used to set the collector
current to a constant and steady value without any signal in its base. This steady DC operating
point is set by the value of the supply voltage and the value of the base biasing resistor. Base
bias resistors are used in all the three transistor configurations like common base, common
collector and Common emitter configurations.

Modes of biasing:

Following are the different modes of transistor base biasing:

1. Current biasing:

As shown in the Fig.1, two resistors RC and RB are used to set the base bias. These resistors
establish the initial operating region of the transistor with a fixed current bias.

The transistor forward biases with a positive base bias voltage through RB. The forward
base-Emitter voltage drop is 0.7 volts. Therefore the current through RB is IB = (Vcc – VBE ) / IB

2. Feedback biasing:

Fig.2 shows the transistor biasing by the use of a feedback resistor. The base bias is obtained
from the collector voltage. The collector feedback ensures that the transistor is always biased in
the active region. When the collector current increases, the voltage at the collector drops. This
reduces the base drive which in turn reduces the collector current. This feedback configuration is
ideal for transistor amplifier designs.

3. Double Feedback Biasing:

Fig.3 shows how the biasing is achieved using double feedback resistors.

By using two resistors RB1 and RB2 increases the stability with respect to the variations in Beta
by increasing the current flow through the base bias resistors. In this configuration, the current
in RB1 is equal to 10 % of the collector current.

4. Voltage Dividing Biasing:

Fig.4 shows the Voltage divider biasing in which two resistors RB1 and RB2 are connected to the
base of the transistor forming a voltage divider network. The transistor gets biases by the
voltage drop across RB2. This kind of biasing configuration is used widely in amplifier circuits.

5. Double Base Biasing:

Fig.5 shows a double feedback for stabilization. It uses both Emitter and Collector base feedback
to improve the stabilization through controlling the collector current. Resistor values should be
selected so as to set the voltage drop across the Emitter resistor 10% of the supply voltage and
the current through RB1, 10% of the collector current.

Advantages of Transistor:

Smaller mechanical sensitivity.

Lower cost and smaller in size, especially in small-signal circuits.

Low operating voltages for greater safety, lower costs and tighter clearances.

Extremely long life.

No power consumption by a cathode heater.

Fast switching.