OSCILLATORS

Introduction of Oscillator
Linear Oscillator
LC Oscillator
Wien Bridge Oscillator
RC Phase-Shift Oscillator
Crystal Oscillator

29/9/2015

INTRODUCTION
Vs

+
+

Positive
Feedback

Vf

Vo

Amplifier (A)
Frequency-Selective
Feedback Network ()

In order to generate and sustain Oscillations, the Oscillator should satisfy two con
ditions:
1. The frequency of a Sinusoidal Oscillator is determined by the condition that th
e loop gain phase shift should be zero.
2. The magnitude of the product of the amplifier gain and the feedback gain of th
e feedback network should be unity.

Vo AV A(Vs V f )

V f Vo

Vo
A

Vs 1 A
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| A | 1
A 0

Barkhausen's Criterion
2

Application of Oscillators
Oscillators are used to generate signals, e.g.
Used as a local oscillator to transform the RF signals to IF
signals in a receiver;
Used to generate RF carrier in a transmitter
Used to generate clocks in digital systems;
Used as sweep circuits in TV sets and CRO.

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Basic Oscillator Feedback Circuit

Oscillator Gain Without Feedback

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Types of Oscillators
1. Sinusoidal Oscillators these are known as Harmonic Oscillators and are general
ly a LC Tuned-feedback or RC tuned-feedback type Oscillator that generates a
purely sinusoidal waveform which is of constant amplitude and frequency.
2. Non-Sinusoidal Oscillators these are known as Relaxation Oscillators and gener
ate complex non-sinusoidal waveforms that changes very quickly from one conditio
n of stability to another such as Square-wave, Triangular-wave or Saw-toothe
d-wave type waveforms.

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1. HARMONIC OSCILLATOR
These are of two types:
1. Feedback Oscillators.
2. Negative Resistance Oscillators.

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FEEDBACK OSCILLATOR
The most common form of linear oscillator is an electronic amplifier such as
a transistor or op amp connected in a feedback loop with its output fed back into its
input through a frequency selective electronic filter to provide positive feedback.

When the power supply to the amplifier is first switched on, electronic noise in the
circuit provides a signal to get oscillations started. The noise travels around the loop
and is amplified and filtered until very quickly it becomes a sine wave at a single
frequency.
These are classified according to the type of feedback network available:

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FEEDBACK OSCILLATOR
1. LC Oscillator
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LC_circuit#mediaviewer/File:Tuned_circuit
_animation_3.gif

The capacitor stores energy in the form of an electrostatic field

The inductive coil stores its energy in the form of an electromagnetic field.
The Charged capacitor gets discharged through inductor in parallel.
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FEEDBACK OSCILLATOR
1. LC Oscillator
Oscillator Resonance
At high frequencies the reactance of a capacitor is very low acting as a short circuit while the
reactance of the inductor is high acting as an open circuit.
At low frequencies the reverse is true, the reactance of the capacitor acts as an open circuit and
the reactance of the inductor acts as a short circuit.
Between these two extremes the combination of the inductor and capacitor produces a
Tuned or Resonant circuit that has a Resonant Frequency, ( r )
Here the capacitive and inductive reactances are equal and cancel out each other, leaving only
the resistance of the circuit to oppose the flow of current. This means that there is no phase
shift as the current is in phase with the voltage.

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FEEDBACK OSCILLATOR
1. LC Oscillator
This rising current sets up an electromagnetic field around the coil which resists
this flow of current.
When the capacitor, C is completely discharged the energy that was originally
stored in the capacitor, C as an electrostatic field is now stored in the inductive
coil, L as an electromagnetic field around the coils windings.
As there is now no external voltage in the circuit to maintain the current within the
coil, it starts to fall as the electromagnetic field begins to collapse. A back emf is
induced in the coil (e = -Ldi/dt) keeping the current flowing in the original direction.
This current charges up capacitor, C with the opposite polarity to its original
charge. C continues to charge up until the current reduces to zero and the
electromagnetic field of the coil has collapsed completely.
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Damped Oscillations

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Resonance Frequency

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 To keep the oscillations going in an LC tank circuit, we have to replace all the energy lost in
each oscillation and also maintain the amplitude of these oscillations at a constant level. The
amount of energy replaced must therefore be equal to the energy lost during each cycle.

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 The simplest way of replacing this lost energy is to take part of the output from the LC tank
circuit, amplify it and then feed it back into the LC circuit again.
This process can be achieved using a voltage amplifier using an op-amp, FET or bipolar
transistor as its active device.

The LC Oscillator is therefore a Sinusoidal Oscillator or a Harmonic Oscillator as it is

more commonly called. LC oscillators can generate high frequency sine waves for use in
radio frequency (RF) type applications with the transistor amplifier being of a Bipolar
Transistor or FET.
Harmonic Oscillators come in many different forms because there are many different ways
to construct an LC filter network and amplifier with the most common being the Hartley
LC Oscillator, Colpitts LC Oscillator and Clapp Oscillator to name a few.

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FEEDBACK OSCILLATOR
2. The Hartley Oscillator
One of the main disadvantages of the basic LC Oscillator circuit we looked at in the previous
tutorial is that they have no means of controlling the amplitude of the oscillations and also, it is
difficult to tune the oscillator to the required frequency.
However, it is possible to feed back exactly the right amount of voltage for constant amplitude
oscillations. If we feed back more than is necessary the amplitude of the oscillations can be
controlled by biasing the amplifier in such a way that if the oscillations increase in amplitude, the
bias is increased and the gain of the amplifier is reduced.
Automatic Base Bias.

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Basic Hartley Oscillator Design

In the Hartley Oscillator the tuned LC circuit is connected between the collector and the base of
a transistor amplifier.
The feedback part of the tuned LC tank circuit is taken from the centre tap of the inductor coil or
even two separate coils in series which are in parallel with a variable capacitor, C as shown.
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 When the circuit is oscillating, the voltage at point X (collector), relative to point Y (emitter),
is 180oout-of-phase with the voltage at point Z (base) relative to point Y. At the frequency of
oscillation, the impedance of the Collector load is resistive and an increase in Base voltage
causes a decrease in the Collector voltage.
Then there is a 180o phase change in the voltage between the Base and Collector and this
along with the original 180o phase shift in the feedback loop provides the correct phase
relationship of positive feedback for oscillations to be maintained.
The amount of feedback depends upon the position of the tapping point of the inductor. If
this is moved nearer to the collector the amount of feedback is increased, but the output taken
between the Collector and earth is reduced and vice versa
Resistors, R1 and R2 provide the usual stabilizing DC bias for the transistor in the normal
manner while the capacitors act as DC-blocking capacitors.

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FEEDBACK OSCILLATOR
3.

The Colpitts Oscillator

The basic configuration of the Colpitts Oscillator resembles that of the Hartley Oscillator but
the difference this time is that the centre tapping of the tank sub-circuit is now made at the
junction of a capacitive voltage divider network instead of a tapped autotransformer type
inductor as in the Hartley oscillator.

Advantage : With less self and mutual inductance in the tank circuit, frequency stability
is improved along with a more simple design
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Basic Colpitts Oscillator Circuit

The transistor amplifiers emitter is connected to the junction of capacitors, C1 and C2 which
are connected in series and act as a simple voltage divider.
When the power supply is firstly applied, capacitors C1 and C2 charge up and then discharge
through the coil L.
The oscillations across the capacitors are applied to the base-emitter junction and appear in
the amplified at the collector output.
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Resistors, R1 and R2 provide the usual stabilizing DC bias for the transistor in the normal
manner while the additional capacitors act as a DC-blocking bypass capacitors.

A radio-frequency choke (RFC) is used in the collector circuit to provide a high reactance
(ideally open circuit) at the frequency of oscillation, ( r ) and a low resistance at DC to help
start the oscillations.

The required external phase shift is obtained in a similar manner to that in the Hartley
oscillator circuit with the required positive feedback obtained for sustained undamped
oscillations.

The amount of feedback is determined by the ratio of C1 and C2. These two capacitances are
generally ganged together to provide a constant amount of feedback so that as one is
adjusted the other automatically follows.

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 The frequency of oscillations for a Colpitts oscillator is determined by the resonant frequency
of the LC tank circuit and is given as:

where CT is the capacitance of C1 and C2 connected in series and is given as:.

The amount of feedback depends on the values of C1 and C2. We can see that the voltage
acrossC1 is the the same as the oscillators output voltage, Vout and that the voltage
across C2 is the oscillators feedback voltage.
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FEEDBACK OSCILLATOR
4.

The RC Oscillator

RC Oscillator, makes use of the fact that a phase shift occurs between the input to a RC network
and the output from the same network by using RC elements in the feedback branch.

RC Phase-Shift Network

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The amount of feedback is determined by the ratio of C1 and C2. These two capacitances are
generally ganged together to provide a constant amount of feedback so that as one is adjusted
the other automatically follows.

Resistors, R1 and R2 provide the usual stabilizing DC bias for the transistor in the normal
manner while the capacitor acts as a DC-blocking capacitors.
The radio-frequency choke (RFC) is used to provide a high reactance (ideally open circuit) at the
frequency of oscillation, ( r ) and a low resistance at DC.

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An ideal single-pole RC circuit would produce a phase shift of exactly 90 o, and because 180o of
phase shift is required for oscillation, at least two single-poles must be used in an RC
oscillator design.
The amount of actual phase shift in the circuit depends upon the values of the resistor and the
capacitor, and the chosen frequency of oscillations with the phase angle ( ) being given as:

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Basic RC Oscillator Circuit

The basic RC Oscillator which is also known as a Phase-shift Oscillator, produces a sine wave
output signal using regenerative feedback obtained from the resistor-capacitor combination.
This regenerative feedback from the RC network is due to the ability of the capacitor to store an
electric charge, (similar to the LC tank circuit).

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 This resistor-capacitor feedback network can be connected as shown above to produce a

leading phase shift (phase advance network) or interchanged to produce a lagging phase shift
(phase retard network).

The gain of the amplifier must be sufficient to overcome the circuit losses. Therefore, in our
three stage RC network above the amplifier gain must be greater than 29.

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FEEDBACK OSCILLATOR
5. Wien Bridge Oscillator

The Wien Bridge Oscillator is so called because the circuit is based on a frequency-selective
form of the Whetstone bridge circuit.

The Wien Bridge Oscillator uses a feedback circuit consisting of a series RC circuit
connected with a parallel RC of the same component values producing a phase delay or phase
advance circuit depending upon the frequency.

At the resonant frequency r the phase shift is 0o

RC Phase Shift Network

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The above RC network consists of a series RC circuit connected to a parallel RC forming

basically a High Pass Filter connected to a Low Pass Filter producing a very selective secondorder frequency dependant Band Pass Filter with a high Q factor at the selected frequency, r.

At low frequencies the reactance of the series capacitor (C1) is very high so acts like an open
circuit and blocks any input signal at Vin. Therefore there is no output signal, Vout.
At high frequencies, the reactance of the parallel capacitor, (C2) is very low so this parallel
connected capacitor acts like a short circuit on the output so again there is no output signal.
However, between these two extremes the output voltage reaches a maximum value with the
frequency at which this happens being called the Resonant Frequency, (r).

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If we now place this RC network across a non-inverting amplifier which has a gain
of 1+R1/R2 the following oscillator circuit is produced.

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The output of the operational amplifier is fed back to both the inputs of the amplifier.

One part of the feedback signal is connected to the inverting input terminal (negative
feedback) via the resistor divider network of R1 and R2 which allows the amplifiers voltage
gain to be adjusted within narrow limits.

The other part is fed back to the non-inverting input terminal (positive feedback) via the RC
Wien Bridge network.

The RC network is connected in the positive feedback path of the amplifier and has zero
phase shift a just one frequency.

Then at the selected resonant frequency, ( r ) the voltages applied to the inverting and noninverting inputs will be equal and in-phase so the positive feedback will cancel out the
negative feedback signal causing the circuit to oscillate.

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The Quartz Crystal Oscillator

One of the most important features of any oscillator is its frequency stability.
Frequency stability of the output signal can be improved by the proper selection of the
components used for the resonant feedback circuit including the amplifier but there is a limit to
the stability that can be obtained from normal LC and RC tank circuits.
To obtain a very high level of oscillator stability a Quartz Crystal is generally used as the
frequency determining device.
When a voltage source is applied to a small thin piece of quartz crystal, it begins to change
shape producing a characteristic known as the Piezo-electric effect.
The crystals characteristic or resonant frequency is inversely proportional to its physical
thickness between the two metalized surfaces.

http://www.explainthatstuff.com/piezoelectricity.html
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Quartz Crystal Equivalent Model

The equivalent circuit for the quartz crystal shows an RLC series circuit, which represents the
mechanical vibrations of the crystal, in parallel with a capacitance, Cp which represents the
electrical connections to the crystal.
Quartz crystal oscillators operate at parallel resonance, and the equivalent impedance of the
crystal has a series resonance where Cs resonates with inductance, L and a parallel resonance
where L resonates with the series combination of Cs and Cp as shown.
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Quartz Crystal Reactance

The slope of the reactance against frequency above, shows that the series reactance at
frequencys is inversely proportional to Cs because below s and above p the crystal appears
capacitive.
Between frequencies s and p, the crystal appears inductive as the two parallel capacitances
cancel out. The point where the reactance values of the capacitances and inductance cancel
each other out Xc = XL is the fundamental frequency of the crystal.
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The equivalent circuit above has three reactive components and there are two resonant
frequencies, the lowest is a series type frequency and the highest a parallel type resonant
frequency.
In a Quartz Crystal Oscillator circuit the oscillator will oscillate at the crystals fundamental
parallel resonant frequency as the crystal always wants to oscillate when a voltage source is
applied to it.

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NEGATIVE RESISTANCE OSCILLATOR

Negative resistance is a property of some electric circuits where an increase in

the current entering a port results in a decreased voltage across the same port.

This is in contrast to a simple ohmic resistor, which exhibits an increase in voltage under the
same conditions.
Negative resistors are theoretical and do not exist as a discrete component.

However, some types of diodes (e.g., tunnel diodes) can be built that exhibit negative
resistance in some part of their operating range.

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NEGATIVE RESISTANCE OSCILLATOR

In electronics, negative resistance devices are used to make bistable switching circuits,
and electronic oscillators, particularly at microwave frequencies.

Tunnel diodes and Gunn diodes exhibit a negative resistance region in their I-V (current
voltage) curve. They have two terminals like a resistor, but are not linear devices.

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Examples of devices with negative Differential resistance:

Gunn Diode
IMPATT Diode
UJT (Unijunction transistor)
Tunnel Diode.
Thyristors.

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NEGATIVE RESISTANCE OSCILLATOR

1. GUNN DIODE
A Gunn diode, also known as a transferred electron device (TED), is a form of diode used in
high-frequency electronics.

Its internal construction is unlike other diodes in that it consists only of Ndoped semiconductor material, whereas most diodes consist of both P and N-doped regions.

In the Gunn diode, three regions exist: two of them are heavily N-doped on each terminal,
with a thin layer of lightly doped material in between.

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NEGATIVE RESISTANCE OSCILLATOR

WORKING

When a voltage is applied to the device, the electrical gradient will be largest across the thin
middle layer.

Conduction will take place as in any conductive material with current being proportional to
the applied voltage.

Eventually, at higher field values, the conductive properties of the middle layer will be
altered, increasing its resistivity, preventing further conduction and current starts to fall.

This means a Gunn diode has a region of negative differential resistance.

In effect, the negative differential resistance of the diode cancels the positive resistance of the
load circuit, thus creating a circuit with zero differential resistance, which will produce
spontaneous oscillations.

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NEGATIVE RESISTANCE OSCILLATOR

VI Characteristics of Gunn Diode:

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NEGATIVE RESISTANCE OSCILLATOR

APPLICATIONS

Because of their high frequency capability, Gunn diodes are mainly used at microwave
frequencies and above.

Their most common use is in oscillators, but they are also used in microwave amplifiers to
amplify signals.

1.
2.
3.
4.

Gunn diode oscillators are used to generate microwave power for:

airborne collision avoidance radar,
anti-lock brakes,
sensors for monitoring the flow of traffic,
car radar detectors.
Gallium arsenide Gunn diodes are made for frequencies up to 200 GHz, gallium
nitride materials can reach up to 3 terahertz.

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2. RELAXATION OSCILLATORS

Relaxation oscillator is a nonlinear electronic oscillator circuit that produces a non

sinusoidal repetitive output signal, such as a triangle wave or square wave.

The circuit consists of a feedback loop containing a switching device such as

a transistor, comparator, relay, op amp, or a negative resistance device like a tunnel diode, that
repetitively charges a capacitor or inductor through a resistance until it reaches a threshold
level, then discharges it again.

The period of the oscillator depends on the time constant of the capacitor or inductor circuit.

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RELAXATION OSCILLATORS
UJT Relaxation Oscillator:

The negative resistance characteristic of the unijunction

transistor makes possible its use as an oscillator.

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RELAXATION OSCILLATORS
Working Concept
The concept of a relaxation oscillator is illustrated by this flasher circuit where a battery
repeatedly charges a capacitor to the firing threshold of a bulb, so that the bulb flashes at a steady
rate.

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RELAXATION OSCILLATORS
When the capacitor is charged to the firing threshold of the bulb, the bulb begins to conduct
and the capacitor discharges, dumping its energy to the bulb, flashing the bulb. After the flash,
the battery begins charging the capacitor again.
A relaxation oscillator is a repeating circuit (like the flasher circuit illustrated above) which
achieves its repetitive behavior from the charging of a capacitor to some event threshold.
The event discharges the capacitor, and its recharge time determines the repetition time of the
events. In the simple flasher circuit, a battery charges the capacitor through a resistor, so that
the values of the resistor and the capacitor (time constant) determine the flashing rate.

Eg:
The blinking turn signal on motor vehicles is
generated by a simple relaxation oscillator.
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THANK YOU !

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