Physics 327 (Spring 2025):
"Modern Instrumentation"
Instructors:
|
Professor |
|
|
e-mail |
podzorov AT physics.rutgers.edu |
|
Office Hour: |
please arrange by e-mail |
|
TA |
Connor Garrity |
|
e-mail: |
cjg254 AT physics.rutgers.edu |
|
Office Hour: |
please arrange by e-mail |
Meeting Time/Location:
|
Lecture (for all sections): |
Wed 5:40pm - 7:00pm |
ARC-105 (Busch) |
|
Lab Sec. 1 (Podzorov): |
Mon 5:40pm - 8:40pm |
Serin-101 (Busch) |
|
Lab
Sec. 2 (Garrity): |
Tue
10:20am - 1:20pm |
Serin-101
(Busch) |
|
Lab Sec. 3 (Garrity): |
Tue 3:50pm - 6:50pm |
Serin-101 (Busch) |
|
Lab Sec. 4 (Garrity): |
Thu 3:50pm -
6:50pm |
Serin-101 (Busch) |
COURSE
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
1. Our 1st Lecture is
on Wed. Jan. 22, 5:40-7:00 pm. All lectures are in ARC-105 (Busch campus) for
all sections.
2. No Labs during
the 1st week of classes. The Labs start the week of Mon. Jan. 27. All labs are
in SERIN Physics building (the main physics building), rm. 101 (1st floor: enter from the Allison Road,
then go one floor down).
Make sure to come to the Lab section you are registered for.
The tentative
schedule for the course is given below. The laboratory topics are typically
covered in the lecture the week before the lab. This schedule is subject to
change.
|
Lab # |
Topic (click for lab manual) |
Lecture/Labs
Date |
Reading assign.
(Chapters) |
Suggested Problems |
|
1 |
DC circuits/DC voltage divider (one-week lab) |
Jan 22/Jan 27,28,30 |
2–6, 15–16, 18 |
4.10–12, 5.1, 6.5 |
|
2 |
AC circuits/
Capacitance, Impedance (one-week lab) |
Jan 29/Feb 3,4,6 |
7–9, 12, 17, 51, 53 |
7.1, 7.4, 8.5, 9.1, 12.3 |
|
3 |
RLC Resonance
(one-week lab) |
Feb 5/Feb 10,11,13 |
8-13 |
11.2, 12.1, 12.5 |
|
4 |
(two-week lab) |
Feb 12/Feb 17,18,20 Feb 19/Feb 24,25,27 |
28–29, 31 |
29.3–6 |
|
5 |
(two-week lab) |
Feb 26/Mar 3,4,6 Mar 5/Mar 10,11,13 |
28 |
28.1–4 |
|
6 |
Difference and
Instrumentation Amplifiers (two-week lab) |
Mar 12/Mar 24,25,27 (Mar 15-23
is Spring Break) Mar 26/Mar 31, Apr 1,3 |
29, 31, 32 |
29.3, 29.5 |
|
7 |
Digital Basics: Timers,
Counters (two-week lab) 74LS00 Quad NAND
gates (datasheet) 7474 Dual D-type
Flip-Flop (datasheet) |
Apr 2/Apr 7, 8,
10 Apr 9/Apr 14,
15, 17 |
19, 21, 23, 24 |
21.1 23.4 |
|
8 |
DAC, ADC (one-week
lab) (datasheet) (datasheet) |
Apr 16/Apr 21,
22, 24 |
35, 36 |
|
|
9 |
(one-week lab) (datasheet) (datasheet) |
No Lecture/Labs
only: Apr 28, 29, May 1 |
|
|
|
|
Extra week
for lab makeups |
No Lecture/Labs
only: May 5, 6, 8 |
|
|
|
|
Absolute
deadline to submit your latest work |
Mon., May 12 |
|
|
This
one-semester course provides an introduction to modern instrumentation and
electronics. It is designed to provide students with the knowledge and skills
necessary for building useful and interesting circuits either in the modern
research laboratory or on their own. The course is focused on techniques and
devices currently used in modern equipment, and special attention is paid to
the basic ideas and techniques used with important types of circuits.
Topics
covered will include:
There will be
one 80-minute lecture and one 180-minute lab per week. Lectures will
occasionally include quizzes, which contribute substantially to your final
grade. These quizzes cannot be made up, but the lowest score from the semester
will be dropped.
Some labs
will be completed in one week, while others span two weeks. Everyone must
individually prepare a laboratory report for each lab.
The primary,
required textbook is:
William L. Faissler, An Introduction
to Modern Electronics, Wiley (ISBN 978-0-471-62242-0).
A copy of the textbook is available at the Rutgers Library of Science
& Medicine: https://bit.ly/3pZNfc9.
Another
excellent and comprehensive reference, beloved by experimental physicists and
electrical engineers alike, is Horowitz & Hill's The Art of
Electronics (3rd Ed.), Cambridge University Press (ISBN: 9780521809269,
https://artofelectronics.net/).
Occasionally,
you will have to perform simple computer simulations of electrical circuits as
a part of your assignments. Please familiarize yourself with a SPICE software
for circuit simulations, such as, e.g., LTspice. You can download it from the official
developer’s website here - LTspice and install it on your computer. I also suggest
you to go over a Wiki page
about this program and run some examples given there.
· The course grade will be based on lab reports (75%), with the
remaining 25% based on quiz scores.
· One lowest quiz score will be dropped. Makeups for quizzes will
not be offered.
· No weekly makeups for labs will be offered. However, if you must
absolutely miss your lab section for a legitimate and documented reason, an
extra week of labs will be arranged at the end of the semester. During that
week, you can make up for one missed lab. In some cases, it might also be
possible for you to temporarily join another lab section, provided that you
arrange it with your TA(s) within that
very week (or two weeks, for longer labs) as the original missed lab. The
possibility of this is however subject of space availability in the other
section(s). Please note that any lab make-ups will only be possible for
official legitimate absences. No switching or makeups for other reasons will be
allowed. Thus, remember to complete the Student Self-Reporting Absence form,
arrange for the required documents (e.g., dean’s letter, doctor’s note, etc.),
and contact the professor and your lab instructor.
· Lab reports will be graded out of maximum of 15 points. Late lab reports will be accepted (via email to your TA) for up to
one week after the deadline but will be
graded out of reduced maximum of 10 points. Lab reports submitted later than
one week after the deadline will not be accepted and will receive 0 points.
· Quizzes will be graded out of maximum of 15 points.
· Grades will be available on Canvas throughout the semester.
· Attendance
is taken down for all the labs. To receive credit for a lab
report, you must
attend the lab and collect the data. Students typically work in pairs (two lab
partners per desk) and thus share the same data set. However, the lab reports
must be composed individually. Borrowing data sets from other
groups is not allowed, unless you discussed this with your instructor and were
permitted to do so. All students (not only lab partners) are encouraged to
discuss the course material and assignments (in class or outside of class) to
exchange ideas, knowledge and experience but not allowed copy-pasting (parts
of) lab reports from each other.
Changes: The course
schedule and guidelines are subject to change. Any changes will be communicated
promptly and clearly.
Absences: Students
are expected to attend all classes; if you expect to miss one or two classes,
please use the University absence reporting website to indicate
the date and reason for your absence. An email is automatically sent to your
instructors.
If you have
been told to quarantine, or are experiencing symptoms of any transmissible
disease, please do not attend in-person class meetings. Contact the Professor
to make arrangements for handling such absences.
Fostering an
equitable and inclusive classroom. All instructors, students, and staff associated with the
Physics and Astronomy Department are expected to follow the Department’s Policy
against Discrimination and Harassment https://physics.rutgers.edu/about-us/about-us-policy-affirmation.
As stated in this policy, “The Rutgers Department of Physics & Astronomy
strives to foster an academic, work, and living environment that is respectful
and free from discrimination and harassment. The Department recognizes the
human dignity of each member of the community and believes that each member has
a responsibility to promote respect and dignity for others so that all
community members are free to pursue their educational and work goals in an
open environment, to participate in the free exchange of ideas, and to share
equally in opportunities.”
The faculty
and staff at Rutgers are committed to your success. Students who are successful
tend to seek out resources that enable them to excel academically, maintain
their health and wellness, prepare for future careers, navigate college life
and finances, and connect with the RU community. Helpful resources include the
Rutgers Learning Centers and school-based advising (for SAS, SOE, SEBS, and RBS). Additional
resources that can help you succeed and connect with the Rutgers community can
be found at https://success.rutgers.edu .
Please visit
the Rutgers Student Tech Guide
for resources available to all students. If you do not have the appropriate
technology for financial reasons, please email the Dean of Students (deanofstudents@echo.rutgers.edu ) for assistance. If
you are facing other financial hardships, please visit the Office of Financial Aid.
Disability
Accommodations: Rutgers University welcomes students with disabilities into all
of the University's educational programs. In order to receive consideration for
reasonable accommodations, a student with a disability must contact the
appropriate disability services office at the campus where you are officially
enrolled, participate in an intake interview, and provide documentation: https://ods.rutgers.edu/students/documentation-guidelines.
If the documentation supports your request for reasonable accommodations, your
campus’s disability services office will provide you with a Letter of
Accommodations. Please share this letter with your instructors and discuss the
accommodations with them as early in your courses as possible. To begin this
process, please complete the Registration form on the ODS web site at: https://ods.rutgers.edu/students/getting-registered
Rutgers
University takes academic dishonesty very seriously. By enrolling in this
course, you assume responsibility for familiarizing yourself with the Academic Integrity Policy
and the possible penalties (including suspension and expulsion) for
violating the policy. As per the policy, all suspected violations will be
reported to the Office of Student Conduct. Academic dishonesty includes (but is
not limited to):
If in doubt,
please contact the Professor. Also review the Academic Integrity Policy and
Academic Integrity Resources for
Students.
Use of
external website resources (such as Chegg.com or others) to obtain solutions
(such as using material from past lab reports) is cheating and a violation of
the University Academic Integrity policy. Cheating in the course may result in
grade penalties, disciplinary sanctions or educational sanctions. Posting any
course assignments to external sites without the instructor's permission may be
a violation of copyright and may constitute the facilitation of dishonesty,
which may result in the same penalties as cheating.
Almost all
original work is the intellectual property of its authors. This includes not
just books and articles, but the syllabi, lectures, slides, recordings, course
materials, presentations, homework problems, exams, and other materials used in
this course, in either printed or electronic form. You may not copy this work,
post it online, or disseminate it in any way without the explicit permission of
the instructor. Respect for an author’s efforts and intellectual property
rights is an important value that members of the university community are
expected to take seriously.
The
university provides a number of resources to support your physical and mental
well-being. Several valuable resources and listed here and you are encouraged
to contact the Professor for more guidance about university resources.
Additional notes/requirements/suggestions on Lab Reports:
Lab reports are to be prepared individually and submitted in Canvas
before the beginning of the next lab. The report must be typed; the graphs are
to be generated using Origin (highly preferred), although Excel is ok too.
Drawings and circuit diagrams can be created in PowerPoint or neatly drawn and
labeled by hand. No carbon copies of the reports will be
accepted. Do not
attempt to prepare and submit a report
if you have not actually done the lab: it will not be accepted. Write
the report so that the reader can understand what you did, what you measured, what theory predicted, etc. The report must be brief, yet
fairly self-sufficient. Do not simply copy the lab instructions of excerpts
from textbooks into your report, unless you are copy-pasting needed formulas,
circuit diagrams, or plots relevant to your work.
Your report should have the following structure:
Introduction: Clearly state the
objective(s) of the lab and give a very short explanation of the theoretically
background (0.5-1 page maximum). To avoid redundancy, do not copy the entire
lab description in your report.
Experimental Method: Brief description of the
equipment used and the experimental procedures should be included. Also include
accurate and neatly drawn circuit diagrams where necessary. Do not include your
results in this section yet.
Results and Discussion: Show the data obtained in
numbered tables and figures. All quantities have to be given with correct
units. Omitted units may result in points being taken off. The figures must
have appropriate axis labels with units if necessary. You can include drawings
or photos of the observed effects/waveforms (an oscilloscope screen, for
instance) to better showcase your observations. Include your data analysis,
with the necessary equations, calculations, discussion of what your
observations and measurements actually mean. Discuss what was expected and how
well the experiment agrees with the theory. Do not give more significant
figures than warranted by the accuracy of your measurements. Include an
elementary error analysis where appropriate.
Conclusions: Discuss if the goals set
forth were met. List the main
experimental results. Often, the obtained results are somewhat different from
what was expected. In such cases, try to understand why and justify your
conclusions.
Here is a
downloadable file with additional suggestions and hints on creating great
lab reports.
An example of a great lab report
of one of my students can be downloaded here.