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Reversed LED Sensor:

Making an Amplified Color
1.
2.
Basic Circuit
Op Amp Schematic Sensor from an LED and an Op
Voltage
3.
4.
Oscilloscope Traces
Signal To Noise Amp Sensing
5. Op Amp Speed
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Ic Guide
One of the first lessons that an electronics student learns is that an LED
provides light from current flow. But, did you know that an LED put in backwards provides current flow
Top Voltage
from light? Yes! It’s true. Sensing
Don’t believe me?
Motor
Control Tips.
Get Your
Voltage
Sensing Pdf.

A multimeter in voltage measurement mode detects voltage in a discrete LED when held close to a light source.

Hook up a high-quality ultra-bright red LED by itself (no battery or other circuitry) to a multimeter in
voltage measurement mode. Put the LED against a light source, such as a desk lamp. See the voltage?
Now, hide the LED in a dark place. See a decrease in voltage? 3D Print
An LED (light emitting diode) is a photosensitive semiconductor with a lens. The LED acts as a photodiode.
Circuits
Photodiodes are used in robots and devices as light sensors. Photodiodes have a spectrum wavelength to
which they are most sensitive, usually infrared. But, not surprisingly, a reversed LED is most sensitive to
World's
the same color of visible light as it normally emits. For example, if a circuit uses a reversed green LED, the most
most current will flow from exposure to green light. conductive
Photodiode Amplification 3D filament
Flashlights,
Unfortunately, even under the best conditions, photodiodes (and reversed LEDs) don’t provide a lot of
current flow. The output of the photodiode needs to be amplified for the light-detection signal to be
robots,
useful in most circuits. A photodiode amplified by a built-in transistor is called a phototransistor. sensors
You can connect a standalone photodiode to the input of a standalone transistor. But, it isn’t easy to
control the gain of a single-transistor amplifier, and there are issues with signal noise and the amount of
input current required. Instead, a better method for amplifying low-power signals in a high-quality
repeatable way is an op amp chip (operational amplifier).

Putting this all together - a color sensor can be made from a reversed LED and an op amp chip. In fact,
TAOS did just that with their TSLR257 (red), TSLG257 (green), and TSLB257 (blue) sensors.
Example schematic for amplifying a photodiode using an op amp.

LED1: Normally an LED has the diode arrow pointed down toward ground because conventional
current flows that way. But, this reversed LED points up. The more light that hits it, the more current
will flow.

IC1: The op amp takes the weak signal of the reversed LED, amplifies it, and sends it out the output
pin. IC1 must be a ultra-low input current op amp. That means the chip can work with very little
input current, which is good because the reversed LED can only produce a little current. This trick
won’t work with an old-fashioned op amp, because it requires a lot more input current.

R1: This is an extremely high-resistance resistor. Although TAOS uses a 320 megohm resistor, the
next circuit in this article only requires 30 megohm.

Resistor R1 allows a teeny tiny bit of the op amp output to feed back into the input signal. If R1
didn’t exist, the high-gain op amp would amplify the LED1 signal so much that it would simply max
out at 5V all the time. But, by taking a bit of current and feeding it back, R1 reduces the LED signal
just enough so that the op amp output voltage is a usable level somewhere between 0V and 5V.

Think of R1 as the volume control. Crank the resistance too high and the output becomes too loud
(oversaturated). Set the resistance too low and the output becomes too quiet to be useful.

C1: Because this circuit deals with extremes (low input signal, high resistance, high gain), it may
oscillate (change values back and forth) unintentionally. Therefore, a small amount of capacitance
(likely in the picofarad range) can stabilize the signal.

Sadly, the TAOS TSLx257 family of color sensors has

been discontinued. It’s too bad because they were a
compact and easy solution. Sonnet®
However, this same type of circuit appears in white
papers and technical notes for both National
Software
Semiconductor’s and Texas Instrument’s op amps. So, Integrated Circuit Design/
you can build a color sensor circuit using their parts.
IC Analysis Tools
Although the circuit will be a lot larger than one
integrated into a single component, you'll be able to
select specific wavelength sensitivity through your
choice of LED color. And, you'll be able to determine
the desired amount of signal gain through your choice
of feedback resistance.

On the next page you'll see the complete schematic and solderless breadboard for the reversed LED color
sensor. The remainder of the article is devoted to a series of oscilloscope traces showing the photodiode
signal in action. These trace tell the story of why certain parts in the circuit improve the accuracy of the
digital output and the signal-to-noise ratio on the input.

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