Company Blog

In this tutorial, we learned how to use lock-in amplifiers and optimize measurement parameters to get the best signal-to-noise ratio. We discussed three common use cases: optics and photonics experiments, material characterization, and resonator characterization. Finally, we looked at more advanced techniques, such as double modulation and multi-frequency measurements.

Resonators with very high Q factor are notoriously complicated to lock because of the steep slope phase at resonance. Precise determination of phase setpoint and gains can be highly time consuming since very high frequency resolution is required. This blog explains how to optimize the PLL by starting with an educated guess and optimizing everything in closed-loop, which is much faster than conventional open-loop characterizations.

Any measurement resolution is limited by random fluctuations, "noise", of the measured quantities. Practical systems also might experience variations of parameters causing "drifts" in the measurements. Various sources of such noises and drifts may take different time or frequency dependencies. To understand how such fluctuations affect one's measurement, a careful analysis of such noise and drifts must be performed. Discrimination of such noise sources might be performed by performing Allan deviation measurement of discretely sample data. In this blog post, we discuss how to easily measure Allan variance with our Zurich Instruments lock-in amplifier.

Among sensing applications, mass measurements have received a lot of attention with the shrinking of devices and the ability to detect individual particles. We have witnessed the shift from macroscopic devices such as the micro-balance to micrometer-size resonator devices and, now, to 2D or 1D materials with exquisite resolution down to a single proton's mass...

A proximity sensor is a sensor that detects nearby objects without physical contact [1]. They are commonly used, in applications ranging from production lines to modern mobile devices, mainly thanks to their non-contact configuration and the accompanying long lifetime. The working principle is simple...

Humidity sensors (also known as hygrometers) are commonly used in applications ranging from everyday sensing to lab research. They are typically placed in an enclosed chamber, such as a car or a glovebox, where they are used to check whether the humidity is healthy for humans or materials inside.