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Laboratory Three
Jacqueline Weiler
PART A
The 1kHz sine wave was observed with an oscilloscope.
Putting the scope into Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) mode, a
large bump was seen initially as it turned on. After that, not
much was seen. A bunch of different frequencies didnt need
to be added together to produce the sine wave.
Fig. 1. FFT of sine wave
The square wave exhibited oscillatory behavior in FFT
mode because many waves are added together to produce the
square wave.
Fig. 2. FFT of square wave
PART B
A circuit was built with a capacitor and inductor in parallel
and grounded. A resistor was in series with them and the
function generator. The amplitude of the output increases as
the frequency increases towards the resonant frequency and
decreases as the frequency is increased past the resonant
frequency. Sweeping and using a peak detect,
According to fres = 2p1LC , our resonant frequency was
calculated to be 15.915kHz. Experimentally, it was around
16.96kHz.
PART C
The previous circuit was driven with a sine wave in sweep
mode that varied the frequency above and below the resonant
frequency. The resonant frequency occurred when the output
was at its maximum.
Fig. 3.
The Q factor is fres / f where f is the full width at half
maximum, correspondingp to the 3dB point. Half maximum
power is equal to 1/ 2 maximum voltage, so this point was
found.
The x-axis on the oscilloscope plots time, but the divisions
were matched with the frequencies swept through, so that each
division represented a change in frequency of 1 kHz. Thus, we
were able to measure the width at half the maximum of the
distribution of the amplitudes in the frequency domain.
PART D
The same circuit was driven with a square wave with a
long period. Zooming in on the transition edge, the attenuated
frequencies could be seen.
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A square wave a given frequency is comprised of linear

combinations of waves with frequencies less than the specified
frequency. The inductor and capacitor pick out the resonant
frequency and amplify it. In terms of the time p constant, Q =
T so Q is the number of oscillations to reach e2/ A0 . The
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half way point is easier to pick out because the peaks attenuate

and dont show up well on the oscilloscope. e 2 =0.207 , so the
number of peaks between A0 and 0.207A0 are counted. This
allows us to calculate the Q factor in the time domain.
The number of peaks between the A0 = 19.6mV and
0.207A0 = 4.07mV was about 8.5, in agreement with our
calculation of the Q factor in the frequency domain.

Fig. 5. Relationship between harmonics and their corresponding amplitudes.

the power. The transformer was grounded and connected to a

diode. The other end of the diode was considered Vout . The
diode was positioned so that the cathode was connected to
the transformer and the anode was connected to the anode. A
resistor in series with the diode and ground ensured that the
current went to Vout . An oscilloscope was connected at Vout .
Fig. 4. The power lines output a fairly smooth sine wave. However,
the diode blocked negative voltages, so only the arcs above
V = 0 actually made it to Vout . As expected, the oscilloscope
PART E showed that only the top half of the sine wave made it through
The function generator produces waves by outputting sine the circuit. In place of the lower half, the voltage was just 0V .
waves of different frequency and amplitude. These combine
to produce the specified wave.
Resonant frequencies occur when standing waves are pro-
duced. This occurs when a whole number of periods or half
periods of one of the linear combinations of a wave fits within
the period of the wave.
fresonant
fharmonic =
n
Square waves are odd functions, so they are expressed as a
combination of cosine waves only; no sine waves. Thus, even
orders of harmonics will not occur.
Experimental results were in agreement with the calculated
values. A harmonic would be calculated, and adjusting the
frequency around that calculated value allowed us to find the
harmonic.
When plotting the frequency of the harmonics against the
peak voltage of each, the plot looked linear on a log-log scale.

PART F Fig. 6. Half wave rectifier output

A half wave rectifier was put together and connected to the

power lines with a transformer to step down the amplitude of By flipping the polarity of the diode, only negative voltages
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were allowed through the circuit. The oscilloscope displayed

the inverse of what was displayed before. The lower arches of
the sine wave showed up, and the upper arches were replaced
with 0V .

PART G
A full wave rectifier was put together according to Figure
7.

Fig. 9. Path the signal follows during both halves of its period

Fig. 7. Full wave rectifier circuit

slowly. As expected, diodes 2 and 3 lit up at the same time,

When an AC signal is applied to the circuit, during one half
period of the sinusoidal waveform, the positive voltage travels
through the diode 3 and the negative voltage travels through
diode 2. For the half of the period, the polarity of the signal
is switched. The negative voltage travels through diode 1 and
the positive voltage travels through diode 4. Thus, Vout only
sees positive voltage; the output for the negative half period
is flipped to the positive side.
followed by diodes 1 and 4, followed by diodes 2 and 3, and
so on.
PART I
A 15 F was connected to the full wave rectifier in parallel
with the resistor. This smoothed out the output and made it
more DC-like. A larger capacitor smooths out the output even
more. The as the voltage increases the capacitor charges and
as it decreases the capacitor discharges.

Fig. 8. Full wave rectifier output

Fig. 10. Adding a capacitor to the full wave rectifier

PART H
The 1N914 diodes were replaced with light emitting diodes
(LEDs). The LED lights up when the signal passes through it.
Below is the path the signal follows:
The circuit was driven with a sine wave. The frequency
was very low at 500 mHz so that the LEDs turned on and off
PART J
A differentiator was connected to a diode at its output
and a resistor to ground. This rectified the output of the
differentiator.
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Fig. 11. Differentiator rectified on channel 1 Fig. 13. Diode clamp in action

PART K
A diode clamp was built. A resistor was in series with Vin
and a diode. The diode was pointed towards a +5V power
supply. Vout was a node in between the diode and the resistor.
When the function driving the circuit had Vpp <= 5V the
output was the same as the input.

Fig. 14. Diode limiter driven with a sine wave

Fig. 12. Diode clamp with nothing to clamp
When Vpp was set higher, the top of the output was cut off
at 5V .
PART M
A scope probe was attached to the oscilloscope. Its ends
were attached at the same points as the first channel. On the x1
setting, the probe showed the same signal as the other channel.
On the x10 setting, the probe shows the same wave amplified
ten times. As seen below, the two output of the oscilloscope
look the same because the one on the right (x10) has ten times
smaller voltages per division.

PART L
A diode limiter was built. A resistor was placed in series
with the input. A node in between the resistor and output had
two grounded diodes of opposite polarities in parallel.
The limiter cut off voltages above five volts and below
negative five volts.
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Fig. 15. Diode limiter driven with a sawtooth wave

Fig. 16. Diode limiter driven with a triangle wave

Fig. 17. Scope probes set to x1 on the left and x10 on the right. Volts per
division for the probes channel are 1.00V /div and 0.1V /div respectively