Okay, now we need to talk about real

voltage and current sources.

And that's going to bring us to the point
where we can then start talking about
impedance matching.
So now, up to now, we've been talking
about only ideal voltage sources.
So, an ideal voltage source.
The definition of that is that, it has a
fixed voltage no matter how much current
is drawn from the source.
And we just represented that with, with
this sort of symbol.
Now, a real voltage source can only
provide a limited amount of current.
There is a you know, if you take, for
example, a 1 1 half volt battery, it's 1
1 half volts.
but if I, completely short-circuit that
battery, it cannot provide an infinite
amount of current.
A very large current, but it's limited.
And the way to represent that is to add a
small internal resistance inside the
battery.
There actually is a small amount of
resistance inside the battery.
And that limits the maximum amount of
current available from that source.
So then, if we take this model of a real
voltage source here, and then I connect a
short circuit across it.
I'm going to have some current flowing
through this short.
And the amount of current that flows
through that short is going to be limited
by the internal resistance of the
battery.
So, let's say this is a 1 and 1 half volt
battery.
And it has an internal resistance of 0.1
ohms, for example.
Then, the total amount of current flowing
through this short will be limited at 15
amps.
So, that's a lot of current, but it's not
infinite.
Now the, in a practical sense then we're
getting closer to the idea of impedance
matching.
So, in a practical circuit.
I want to let's say I'm trying to build a
heater circuit.
And I want to get the maximum of power
transfer from the battery into this load
resistor to make the maximum amount of
heat.
And now, in practice, the load resistance
and the internal resistance form a
voltage divider.

So remember, this is inside the battery

and this is the external load.
So, the voltage developed across RL, the
load, is just going to be familiar
voltage divider equation.
So, it's the total voltage times this
factor, which is the ratio RL over the
total series resistance RL plus R
internal.
Now, we're ready to talk about the
subject of impedance matching.
So, this is the same circuit that we just
looked at, you have a volt, voltage
source, a real voltage source with some
internal impedance.
And we attached some lower resistor and
there's a current flowing around this
circuit.
So the question is, what is the value of
the load resistance rl that will give us
maximum power transfer from this source
to the load?
Now, to calculate that we have to go back
and remember the formula for the power.
Dissipated in this resistor is just the
current going through the resistor times
the voltage across the resistor, VL.
Then, the current going through the
resistor is just the voltage divided by
the series combination of the two
resistances.
And the voltage across this resistor is
just the current going through it times
RL.
So, I can use this expression for I and
plug it in here, and so this becomes V
over R internal plus RL times RL.
So, now I can take both of these
expressions.
The one for VL and plug it in here.
The one for I and plug it in there.
And so, you get the power dissipated in
the low resistor.
It goes as V squared.
So, there's a V times a V.
And then it, it's proportional to RL
divided by this factor R internal plus R
L squared.
So, that's the power dissipated in that
resistor, which transferred to that
resistor.
And so now what we want to do is find the
value of RL that makes this a maximum, as
big as it can be.
Now, we can do this using a little bit of
calculus.
And we'll do that in a minute.
But first, let's just take a look at a
graph of this.
So I just use Microsoft Excel and plotted

this factor as a function of RL over R

internal.
And so you, you see that there's a peak
here when RL equals R internal.
This curve reaches its maximum, and the
value of that maximum is .25.
And so, here's the answer to, the
question that RL equals R internal gives
us the maximum of this curve.
And at that point, this factor has a
value of one fourth.
Now we, as I said, we could also use a
little bit of calculus to find this
maximum.
And so, what we have to do is take the
factor that we're trying to maximize with
respect to RL.
So, you take the derivative with respect
to RL, set the whole thing equal to zero.
And then, solve for RL.
If you do that, you find that the
solution to that is going to be RL equals
R internal.
That's where the peak is going to be.
And then, if I plug that back in, I make
RL equal R internal.
The maximum power transfer then is just v
squared over 4R internal.
So at that value of rl I get maximum
power transfer to the load resistor