Company Blog

Generation of Single-Sideband Modulation by Arbitrary Waveform Generators

15.12.2017

SSB modulation Scheme

Introduction I/Q modulations are extensively used in a variety of applications including telecommunications, quantum computing (QC), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy and band-excitation atomic force microscopy (AFM). In this post, we demonstrate how to generate such signals using arbitrary waveform generators from Zurich Instruments with an...

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Formation sur les Techniques KFM à Grenoble

29.11.2017

Resume des modes KPFM

Pour la seconde année consécutive, le réseau RéMiSoL, avec le soutien du CEA LETI, de l’IEMN et de partenaires industriels (NanoAndMore, Zurich Instruments), a proposé une action nationale de formation (ANF) CNRS le 7 et 8 novembre sur le thème de la microscopie à sonde de Kelvin (KFM, ou parfois...

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Protecting Your Setup From High Voltage Peaks

24.11.2017

Overvoltage protection

This blog post describes how a setup can be protected from overvoltage that occurs when switching off a coil. Fast changing currents induce transient voltages in an inductive load which can be expressed by the formula: V = - L (dI/dt) L is the inductance in Henry and dI/dt is...

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Measuring PLL/PID Bandwidths Under Real Experimental Conditions

14.11.2017

PLL

With the merging of the PLL and PID tab in LabOne for the MFLI and the UHFLI, the PID Advisor section is now identical for both types of feedback loops, and various system models can be tested. After all, a phase-locked-loop (PLL) is nothing more than a PID feedback on...

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Displaying Nyquist Plots on the MFIA Impedance Analyzer

27.09.2017

Frequency Arrow

Nyquist plots are a key tool when displaying complex impedance data. They display the real part of the signal on the X-axis against the imaginary part on the Y-axis. Each point on the plot represents a different frequency. The MFIA (and the MFLI with the MF-IA option) can display impedance...

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Kramers–Kronig Test Applied to Impedance Measurements of Electrical Circuits

25.09.2017

Kramers-Kronig

Introduction In this post, the Kramers-Kronig relations are used to verify the results of an impedance measurement experiment performed with the Zurich Instruments MFIA Impedance Analyzer or the MFLI Lock-in Amplifier equipped with the MF-IA option. The Kramers-Kronig relations state that the real part of the impedance can be obtained...

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LCR Meter vs Impedance Analyzer

11.08.2017

Numeric Tab

We are often asked about the difference between LCR meters and impedance analyzers, especially given that the MFIA Impedance Analyzer combines the functionalities of both instruments. LCR meters and impedance analyzers are fundamentally similar, in that they both measure impedance parameters such as capacitance, inductance and resistance.They achieve this by...

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SPM User Meeting in Mainz

21.07.2017

Daniel's Tutorial

It was an honor and privilege to host our first SPM User Meeting in Mainz this year in the group of Prof. Angelika Kuehnle. This two-day gathering was a time for intense knowledge sharing among Zurich Instruments' users with invited talks, tutorials in smaller groups and a poster session. Invited...

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Outputting Low-Frequency Sinusoidal Signals on the AUX Output of the MFLI

30.05.2017

Lock-in Tab

This blog post shows how to output sinusoidal signals on the AUX Output of the MFLI Lock-in Amplifier with the MF-MD Multi-Demodulator option. Keep in mind that AUX outputs are not designed to output sinusoidal signals as the Signal Output.

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Teraohm Impedance Measurements with the MFIA Impedance Analyzer

29.05.2017

TeraOhm Measurement

Introduction This blog post describes impedance measurements of a 1 TΩ commercially-available resistor using the MFIA Impedance Analyzer. This further demonstrates how the MFIA can accurately measure challenging components with very high impedance. Thanks to a clear reactance chart, MFIA users know what accuracy they can expect starting from the...

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Noise Analysis of Signal Components

29.03.2017

Noise PSD

In this blog post, we investigate the relation between the noise of signal amplitude and phase on one hand, and the noise of in-phase and quadrature components of the signal on the other hand. We try to respond to the wrong intuition stating that the standard deviation of signal amplitude is higher than the standard deviation of each signal components...

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Fast Auto-Approach to Control Stepper Motor with the MFLI Threshold Unit

22.02.2017

TU Block Diagram

In many applications where the distance between two objects needs to be reduced to a predefined gap, the ability to control a stepper motor with clear stop conditions from different sensors is of high practical interest. Such functionality can be used to bring an optical lens to the appropriate working...

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RF Reflectometry Measurements of Quantum Dots

20.02.2017

Coulomb Diamonds

Characterizing semiconductor spin qubits with radio-frequency (RF) reflectometry offers a speed advantage over low-frequency conductance measurements thanks to insensitivity to 1/f noise. In this blog post, the measurements of Josip Kukučka and his colleagues...

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Compensating Delay-Induced Phase Shifts for High-Frequency Resonators

20.02.2017

Compensation Delay Schematic

Phase-locked loops (PLL) or other PID controllers on nano-mechanical resonators rely on clean phase signals that exhibit large slope, or significant phase shift, around the resonance frequency. For really high-frequency NEMS and opto-mechanical systems above a few tens or hundreds of MHz, any small delay can have significant effect on...

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Time-Domain Response of Lock-in Filters

09.02.2017

Impulse Response

The heart of a lock-in amplifier is a phase-sensitive detector that includes a signal mixer and a low-pass filter. In this blog post, we focus on the time response of the low-pass filters implemented in the Zurich Instruments lock-in amplifiers including the MFLI, the HF2LI and the UHFLI...

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