FCQ for the lectures

The Faculty Course Questionaire for the lecture portion of the course will be given out in class on Tuesday, Oct. 29. Please participate and let us know what you think!

Midterm Exam, Wednesday Oct. 30, 7:00-8:30 pm, Physics Help Room

You may bring one sheet with hand-written notes on one side and a calculator. Use of an electronic device to extend your notes is not allowed. An old exam is posted under the Hints tab. Solutions to the prelabs and an answer key to all the clicker questions will be posted on our D2L site on 10/25.

Week 9, Lab: Field Effect Transistors and Noise, October 21-October 25

This week we learn about low-noise field-effect transistors.

Week 8, Lab: Bipolar Transistor Amplifiers, October 14-October 18

This week we make an amplifier from two npn transistors.

Week 7, Lab: Photometer and Optical Link, October 7-October 11

This week we make a photometer out of a photodiode and an op-amp, and then use it to characterize an LED light source.

Week 6, Lab: Positive Feedback and Oscillators, September 30-October 4

This week we turn the inverting amplifier circuit into an active bandpass filter, and then add positive feedback to create a sine-wave oscillator.

Week 5, Lab: Operational Amplifiers and Negative Feedback, September 23-27

In this week's lab we start working with operational amplifiers.

Week 4, Lab: Filters and Waveform Shaping continued, September 16-20

Tuesday labs are canceled, but we will have a lectures on Tuesday and Thursday as usual. Thursday lab sections will complete the lab Filters and Waveform Shaping. Next week all sections will be working on the same lab again.

Week 3, Lab: Filters and Waveform Shaping, September 9-13

In this week's lab we build and test passive fliters containing resistors, capacitors and inductors. Thursday lecture and lab sections were canceled because of the 100 year flood.

Week 2, Lab: DC Measurements,Voltage Dividers and Bridges, September 2-6

In this week's lab we use bridge and 4-wire methods to measure resistance. Your report on this week's lab is due at the start of your lab period next week. All assignements are to be turned in to the appropriate D2L dropbox. Please turn in a single document for each assignment, not separate files for each page. You can use a free program called "PDF split and merge" to make a single pdf. There are smart phone apps that can scan to a single document as well, such as Camscanner and Genius Scan. Please use files names such as Prelab2_lastname or Report2_lastname.

Week 1, Lab: Electronic Instruments, August 26-30

Lectures will be in Duane G-125 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, 1:00-1:50 pm. First laboratory sessions meet in Duane G-230 during the first week of classes, August 26-30th. In the lecture we will introduce the course and begin discussing the theory behind the labs. In the lab session we will provide you with a laboratory notebook and do the first lab, which introduces the oscilloscope, waveform generators, power supplies, and and the electronics breadboards.

New Thursday Morning Section

To relieve crowding, we have opened a new lab section that will meet at 9:00-11:50 am Thursday. Please consider switching to this section! It will take a few days before you can officially register for it, but please begin attending this week.

About Physics 3330

Electronics for the Physical Sciences provides students with an opportunity to learn about the design, construction, and operation of electronic circuits.

In the first 10 weeks of the course students conduct pre-designed experiments that cover important topics in analog (Week 1-9) and digital (Week 10) electronics. About mid-semester, students begin to conceive of independent electronics projects. The projects take up the last 5 weeks of the course. Instructors will make every effort to support original and creative projects. At the end of the semester, students submit a project report and describe their projects to the class in an oral presentation.