640-251 Electronics and Instrumentation

Credit Points

Coordinator

Prerequisites

Physics 640-121 + 640-122 or 640-141 + 640-142 or 640-161 + 640-162; Mathematics 620-111 or 620-121 or 620-142.

(For subjects completed prior to 1998, the Mathematics and Statistics departmental code 620- should be replaced by the superseded Mathematics departmental code 618-)

Semester

Contact

Subject Description

This subject presents the basic principles and techniques of analogue electronics with an emphasis on applications involving sensors and instrumentation and the roles that electronics plays in modern scientific research.

The lectures are tightly related to the laboratory subject in which students build skills in designing and building electronic circuits. The lectures revise the understanding of DC circuits and then present techniques used to analyse AC circuits using complex number representation. Concepts of amplifiers and feedback are introduced, leading into the design and applications of operational amplifier circuits. Semiconductor devices, such as diodes and transistors, are studied as the basic building blocks of these circuits.

The subject concludes by looking at electronic data-logging systems. Such systems use computers and sensors to log and process data and then display these data in an appropriate form.

Assessment

A 2-hour end-of-semester written examination (50%); practical work (50%).

Prescribed Texts

• N. Storey, Electronics, A Systems Approach. Addison-Wesley 1992.