Lock-in Detection and Hall Effect

abc∗
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826 Korea
(Dated: April 24, 2023)
In this experiment, we investigated the principles of lock-in detection and its application in mea-
suring the Hall effect to determine the magnetic properties of a neodymium magnet. The lock-in
amplifier, consisting of a preamplifier, phase shifter, detector, and low-pass filter, was calibrated to
optimize signal processing and noise reduction. By understanding the roles and transfer functions
of these components, we established the ideal conditions for lock-in detection. The impact of DC
offset on the lock-in detection process was also examined. Subsequently, the Hall effect was mea-
sured under optimal lock-in conditions, enabling us to calculate the magnetic dipole moment of the
ferrite bar magnet. Our experiment demonstrates the efficacy of lock-in detection in isolating and
analyzing weak signals in the presence of noise, as well as its utility in accurately measuring the
Hall effect.

I. INTRODUCTION that combines two input signals, the signal of interest

and the reference signal, to generate an output signal
In this experiment, we aim to demonstrate the effec- containing the product of the two inputs. The output
tiveness of lock-in detection for extracting weak signals signal of DBM can be evaluated as[1] :
from noisy data by sensitively measuring the Hall effect
signal under lock-in conditions. The primary focus is Vout = Vin sign(Vref ) (2)
on optimizing the lock-in detection process to accurately
measure the Hall effect and determine the magnetic prop- Due to the multiplication, the desired signal component
erties of a neodymium magnet. becomes centered at DC (0 Hz). The output signal of
the DBM is then passed through a low-pass filter, which
removes the high-frequency components and retains the
A. Lock-in detection desired low-frequency component (near-DC) that corre-
sponds to the product of the input and reference signals.
Lock-in detection is a technique used to extract a spe-
cific signal from noisy data. It involves multiplying the
input signal with a reference signal of the same frequency 2. RC low-pass filter
and subsequently applying a low-pass filter to isolate the
desired signal. Due to the multiplication, the desired The low-pass filter used in this experiment is an RC
signal component becomes centered at DC (0 Hz), while circuit of first or second order[2].
unwanted noise components remain at higher frequencies. The gain of first-order RC low-pass filter with a time
After this, the signal goes through the low-pass filter, and constant τ is
the final output signal becomes
1
2 G1 (f ) = p (3)
Vout = G Vamp (1) 1 + (2πτ f )2
π
Where Vamp is the input signal amplitude, and G is the and the 3dB frequency is f = 1/2πτ . Second order RC
total gain of the Lock-in amplifier. low-pass filter consists of two first-order filters, so the
Lock-in detection is particularly effective when the gain becomes
noise is incoherent and the signal of interest is weak or
obscured by noise. By characterizing and calibrating the 1
G2 (f ) = (4)
lock-in amplifier’s components, we optimize the lock-in 1 + (2πτ f )2
detection process to accurately measure the Hall effect
in this experiment.
B. Hall Effect

1. Double Balanced Mixer

The Double Balanced Mixer (DBM) is a crucial compo-
nent in lock-in detection. It is a type of frequency mixer
∗ abc
The Hall effect is a phenomenon that occurs when a
current-carrying conductor is placed in a magnetic field
perpendicular to the direction of the current flow. The
Lorentz force acts on the charge carriers, causing them
to accumulate on one side of the conductor and creating
a potential difference known as the Hall voltage. This
effect can be used to measure magnetic fields and the

properties of charge carriers in a material. The equilib-
rium condition of the Hall effect can be described by the
following equation:
eEH = evB, VH = vdB (5)
where e is the charge of an electron, E is the electric field,
v is the drift velocity of the charge carriers, and B is the
magnetic field.
In this experiment, a ferrite bar magnet serves as the
source of the magnetic field acting on the Hall element.
The magnet’s magnetic field distribution is calculated us-
ing the Biot-Savart law by considering it a rectangular
magnetic field source. The Hall measurement can be
used to obtain the magnetic dipole moment or magne-
tization of the magnet. The magnetic field generated by
the cubic bar magnet with magnetization M ⃗ along the
longitudinal direction can be described as:
⃗ nique to observe the Hall effect. We positioned a ferrite
B⃗ = µ0 M ( π − tan−1 ( az ) − tan−1 ( bz )), (6)
π 2 bl al
p
Where l = (a/2)2 + (b/2)2 + z 2 and µ0 is the perme-
ability of free space, I is the current, a and b are the
magnet’s height and width, and z is the distance from
the Hall element to the magnet. Here, the longitudinal
length is approximated to be infinite.
II. EXPERIMENTAL
In this experiment, a TeachSpin lock-in amplifier was
employed for the lock-in detection process. For the Hall
effect measurement, an MG910 GaAs Hall element and a
ferrite bar magnet with size (2.0cm×0.9cm × ??cm) were
utilized. The bar magnet is broken in the longitudinal
direction. However, it is long enough to use (6).
A. Properties of the Lock-in Amplifier
Initially, we examined the properties of each compo-
nent that constitutes the lock-in amplifier. In the first
part (A1), we measured the responses of the preamplifier
for input frequencies ranging from 101 to 104 Hz, and
evaluated 3dB frequencies. This is done for various gain
values between 1 to 100. Following that, in part A2, we
analyzed the phase shifter’s anomalous behavior depend-
ing on input frequency, for frequencies between101 and
105 Hz. In the third section (A3), we inspected the out-
put signal of the double-balanced mixer, which depends
on the phase difference between the input and reference
signals. We used a 1 kHz sine wave and modified the ref-
erence signal’s phase in increments of π/2 radians using
the phase shifter. Lastly, in part A4, we measured the
low-pass filter’s gain for frequencies between 0.1 and 100
Hz. The filter’s time constant was set to 0.03, 0.1, or 0.3
[s], and the rolloff was set to either 6 or 12 dB/octave.
2
B. Lock-in Detection
In section B, the results from part A were used to per-
form an optimal lock-in detection. Firstly, in B1, we ex-
amined the frequency spectrum of a 1 kHz sine wave sig-
nal with added noise by a noise generator to confirm that
the noise generator operates normally. Subsequently, in
B2, a lock-in detection of a 1 kHz sine wave signal with
noise was carried out to investigate how the output sig-
nal responds to variations in the signal-to-noise ratio and
phase difference relative to the reference signal. Lastly,
in B3, we explored the impact of an external DC offset
on the lock-in detection’s output signal.
C. Measurement of the Hall Effect
In section C, we applied the lock-in detection tech-
bar magnet close to a Hall element and supplied sine
wave voltage with a frequency of 1 kHz and an ampli-
tude of 1.50V. Next, we performed a lock-in measure-
ment of the Hall voltage. By altering the magnet’s dis-
tance to the Hall element, we measured the magnetic field
in the z-direction and subsequently determined the mag-
net’s magnetization. The offset control of the low-pass
filter must be carefully adjusted to ensure that the out-
put signal is nullified in the absence of a magnetic field.
The calibration of the offset of the low-pass filter is not
on [1], but is very important in obtaining high-precision
measurement of the Hall effect.
III. RESULTS
A. Properties of the Lock-in Amplifier
1. Properties of the preamplifier
The gain of the preamplifier can be tuned between val-
ues from 1 to 100. However, in the high-frequency region,
the gain of the preamplifier differs from the tuned gain
value. Figure 1 shows the frequency dependence of the
preamplifier. From this data, the 3dB frequencies of each
gain value can be evaluated by linear fitting as shown in
Figure 2, by linear regression. The 3dB frequencies ob-
tained this way are shown in Table I.
2. Properties of the phase shifter
The anomalous phase of the phase shifter is shown in
Figure 3. It turns out that the anomalous phase factor is
linearly proportional to log10 (f ) for the frequency range
between 101 ∼ 103 Hz, and the slope can be evaluated as
−3.877 ± 0.002 [−](1σ error), and the R2 value is 0.9993.
 3

Gain 3dB Frequency (kHz) Error of 3dB Frequency (kHz)

1.0 1731.92 1.35
2.0 1187.06 0.26
5.0 887.91 0.38
10.0 619.17 0.58
20.0 473.21 0.19
50.0 206.13 0.29
100.0 108.33 0.34

TABLE I. 3dB Frequencies for gains between 1 to 100. The

errors of 3dB frequencies are 1σ errors.

FIG. 1. gain to frequency graph obtained from the preampli-

fier. The gain, according to the preamplifier dial, is indicated
with dotted lines.

FIG. 3. Anomalous phase of the phase shifter. The data is

adjusted modulo 2π.

perimental data fit well with the theoretical value eval-

uated from the gain of first-order and second-order RC
low-pass filters.

FIG. 2. The frequency dependence of preamplifier with gains

between 1 to 100. The red dotted line indicates the fitting B. Lock-in Detection
curve obtained by linear fitting, and the blue dotted line in-
dicates the 3dB frequency.
1. The frequency spectrum of signal and noise

3. Properties of the double balanced mixer
The output signal generated by the DBM is shown in
Figure 4. The frequency of the input sine wave was set
to 1.00kHz, and the phase difference between the input
and reference signal was adjusted by the phase shifter.
The FFT spectrum of an input signal with and without
noise added by the noise generator is shown in Figure 6.
From the resulting data, one can confirm that the noise
generator acts normally.
2. Lock-in detection from a noisy signal

4. Properties of the low-pass filter
The output gain of a low-pass filter is shown in Fig-
ure 5. Gain in dB is evaluated as :
Vout
gain = 20 log10 ( ) (7)
Vin
the gain was obtained for six different setups (time con-
stants 0.03s, 0.1s, 0.3s and rolloff 6dB/oct and 12dB/oct)
and a frequency range between 10−1 ∼ 103 Hz The ex-
Figure 8 shows the phase dependence of the lock-in
detection. The quadratic fit results are shown in Ta-
ble II. The input signal was a sine wave with frequency
of 1.00kHz and amplitude of 0.50V, and the total gain
of the lock-in amplifier Gtot = GPreAmp GDBM GLPF was
set to Gtot = 2.
Lock-in detection was conducted for S/N ratios of 0.1,
1, and 10. For S/N ratios of 0.01 or lower, lock-in detec-
tion was unable to conduct. The S/N ratios are evaluated
by setting the noise amplitude as 10V when the noise am-
plitude dial is set to 1. This is based on the measurement
 4

(a) (b)

(a) (b) FIG. 6. FFT spectrum screenshot of sin wave input signal,
with and without noise. The red line is the FFT spectrum,
and the yellow line is the output signal in the time domain.
(a) is the case without noise, and (b) is the case with noise
generated by the noise generator.

(c) (d)

FIG. 4. The input signal(yellow) and output signal made by

DBM(blue). The reference signal is a sin wave of the same
frequency, and the phase difference with the input signal was
set to π/2(a), π, 3π/2, and 2π rad, respectively, by the phase
shifter.

FIG. 7. Noise signal generated by the noise generator with

the noise amplitude dial set to 1.

3. Offset DC voltage

The DC offset dependence of the lock-in detection

(a) (b)
FIG. 5. gain of the low-pass filter. The solid line is the theo-
retical value, evaluated from (3) and (4). (a) is experimental
data obtained from a setup with rolloff=6dB/oct, and (b)
with rolloff=12dB/oct
process is shown in Figure 10. The input signal was
a sine wave with a frequency of 1.00kHz and ampli-
tude of 0.50V, and the total gain of the lock-in ampli-
fier was set to Gtot = 2. As the DC offset increases,
the output tends to decrease linearly with a small slope
(−76 ± 5) × 10−3 [−](1σ error). The R2 value is 0.9923.

of pure noise data with the noise amplitude dial set to 1.

This is shown in Figure 7
C. Measurement of the Hall Effect
The theoretical output value of the lock-in detection
can be obtained by the anomalous phase of the phase
shifter and the phase shift induced by the noise generator. The magnetic field generated by the ferrite bar magnet,
At 1.00kHz frequency, the noise generator reverses the which is evaluated from the Hall measurement, is shown
phase of the input signal(As shown in Figure 9), and in Figure 11. The input voltage was a sine wave with am-
the anonymous phase value of the phase shifter obtained plitude 1.50V and 1.0kHz frequency, and the total gain
from A1 is 0.137 ± 0.002 [rad]. of the lock-in amplifier was Gtot = 2. The magnetic field
of the ferrite bar magnet was evaluated from (1) and
S/N ratio Optimal Phase Value (degree) r2 the data sheet of the MG910 GaAs Hall element[3]. By
1 174.1 ± 10.4 0.8534 fitting with theoretical value, the magnetization of the
0.1 175.8 ± 2.9 0.9566 ferrite bar magnet can be evaluated as:
0.01 176.5 ± 2.6 0.9595
µ0 M = 54.6 ± 1.0 [mT ] (8)
TABLE II. Optimal phase values and their respective uncer-
tainties at 1σ confidence level. The r2 values correspond to
the coefficient of determination from the quadratic regression
analysis. The R2 value of the regression is 0.9924.

FIG. 8. phase dependence of lock-in detection. Experimental
data are measured for various S/N ratios. The black dotted
line indicates the theoretical maximum value of the output
signal.
FIG. 9. Input(yellow) and output(blue) signal of the noise
generator. The input frequency is 1.00kHz, and the noise
amplitude is set to 0.
IV. DISCUSSION
In B and C, all the lock-in detection process was con-
ducted with a 1.00kHz sin wave signal. The 1.00kHz was
selected for three reasons. First, if the frequency is over
the range 100kHz, then the gain of the preamplifier dif-
fers from the designed value, so the frequency should be
selected lower than 100kHz. Second, the 3dB frequency
of the low-pass filter is about 1Hz with the time constant
τ = 0.1[s], and the frequency should be selected higher
than 1Hz. Between 1 and 100k Hz, 1kHz was selected
finally because the anomalous phase of the phase shifter
was small(0.137 ± 0.002 [rad]) at 1.00kHz.
Also, the gains are selected with reasons. Firstly, the
Double Balanced Mixer does not work properly when the
voltage amplitude of the input signal or DBM gain is too
big. To avoid this issue, we fixed DBM gain to GDBM = 2
(which is the minimum value). Second, the preamplifier
gain should be small, too, because the preamplifier ampli-
fies the noise with the desired signal. So if the preampli-
fier gain is too large, then this makes the DBM operate
anomalously. Indeed, the preamplifier gain was set to
GPreAmp = 1.
5
FIG. 10. DC offset dependence of the lock-in amplifier. The
black dotted line indicates the theoretical value evaluated
from (1), and the red line is the fitting curve obtained from
linear regression.
FIG. 11. Magnetic field of the ferrite bar magnet evaluated
from the Hall effect measurement.
Efforts in these setup choices have enabled very accu-
rate lock-in detection. In B2, The experimental data fit
well with the theoretical value even when S/N=0.1. This
result indicates that the lock-in detection works well even
in environments where the noise is greater than the sig-
nal.
In C, the ferrite bar magnet, the weakest one, is se-
lected to demonstrate the accuracy of the lock-in detec-
tion. We demonstrated a high-precision measurement of
the magnetization of the magnet. The precision we mea-
sured is overwhelming compared to the excellent reports
from the past years. Moreover, the magnets we use are
about 20 times less magnetized than usual neodymium
magnets.
V. CONCLUSION
In this experiment, we demonstrated the effectiveness
of lock-in detection in measuring the Hall effect. We

characterized and calibrated the components of the lock-
in amplifier to optimize the lock-in detection process and
investigated the impact of various factors, such as phase
difference, noise level, and external offset voltage, on
the output signal. After confirming the lock-in ampli-
fier’s stability, we applied lock-in detection to measure
the magnetic field of a ferrite bar magnet using the Hall
[1] D. of Physics & Astronomy, Intermediate physics experi-
ment, lock-in detection and hall effect (2023).
[2] J. F. Reichert and G. S. Herold, Signal Processor Lock-In
Amplifier Instructor’s Manual (2002).
6
effect. This allowed us to obtain the magnetic dipole
moment accurately and the magnetic field generated by
the magnet while effectively filtering out noise. The ex-
periment highlights the importance of lock-in detection
for extracting weak signals from noisy data and its ap-
plicability in characterizing the magnetic properties of
materials.
[3] LtD, Mg910 GaAs Hall Element Datasheet, URL https:
//www.devicemart.co.kr/goods/view?no=10918258.