AMPLIFICADOR DARLINGTON 1

Darlington Amplifier
Valencia Kevin, Estudiante , Universidad de las Fuerzas Armadas ESPE,
Pichucho Kevin, Estudiante , Universidad de las Fuerzas Armadas ESPE

Abstract—The Darlington transistor, which is the union of two transistors connected to each other, has several features that make it
very efficient when generating gain and optimizing circuits, this last because they are encapsulated 2 in a single chip. The gain will
depend on that of each of the internal transistors. One of the applications of this electronic element is in the Darlington amplifier
which will be analyzed in this report which will basically focus on observing the results and drawing conclusions about it.
Keywords—gain, current, resistance, voltage, emitter, collector, base, frequency, transistor.
I. INTRODUCTION • Capacitors
• Transistor TIP142
N owadays all the electronic devices that are used have as
fundamental elements the transistors so it is necessary
to know how they work, what characteristics they have, what Methods
types exist and mainly to know what their practical applica-
This practice focuses on showing the operation of the
tions may be. In this practice an audio amplifier composed of a
Darlington transistors in amplifiers, for this the following steps
Darlington type transistor which is the union of two connected
had to be followed:
normal transistors will be implemented as can be seen in Fig.1,
this electronic element has certain characteristics which will be 1) Assemble the circuit of Fig.2 correctly and verify the po-
observed in the development of the present report, the analysis larization conditions of the transistor, vary the resistors
of this circuit will be divided into two parts, the polarization R1 and R2 that general the voltage divider to achieve a
in direct current and the gain of the amplifier when applying Vce = 4V before inserting the generator signal.
different frequencies.

Fig. 2. Equivalent circuit in DC

2) Measure with the multimeter the voltages and the cur-

rents in each resistance of the circuit, the current Ic and
the voltage between collector and emitter to verify that
the point Q is the expected one, in addition to measure
the base current of the transistor.
3) Calculate the beta of the darlington transistor and verify
Fig. 1. Schematic of the Darlington transistor that it is correct using the respective datasheat.
4) Once verified that the circuit is correctly polarized, it
proceeds to connect the components that act on alter-
II. MATERIALS AND METHODS nating current such as capacitors and signal generator
see Fig.3.
Materials 5) Connect the input of the signal generator and the output
• Resistors that is in the RL resistor to the oscilloscope to be able
• DC source to compare the graphs and draw conclusions.
• Multimeter 6) Vary the frequencies and change the input voltage of the
• Protoboard signal generator to the limit point before the graphics
• Conductive wires begin to distort.
AMPLIFICADOR DARLINGTON 2

12.9 %, this is the only one that exceeds 5 % therefore,

it can be concluded that it is committed by human error.
At the moment of finding the Beta, it can be noticed that
the reliability of this data depends to a great extent on the
accuracy that the ammeter has because it must measure very
low currents which at the minimum variation will produce
great alterations to the beta. Regarding the amplification and
gain that the circuit presented and its frequency response is
described in Table II:
Fig. 3. Darlington amplifier to be analyzed

1KHz 10KHz 50KHz 500KHz 1MHz 10MHz

E.int 168[mV] 180[mV] 200[mV] 168[mV] 240[mV] 140[mV]
7) Repeat the same procedure above but varying the fre-
E.out 1.56[V] 2.32[V] 2.60[V] 1.94[V] 2.3[V] 660[mV]
quencies to obtain the graph of gain - frequency.
AV 9.28 12.88 13 11.59 9.58 4.71

III. P ROCESS TABLE II

Once the modification of the resistors R1 and R2 was
made to obtain a Vce equal to 4, the collector current can
be measured to obtain the point Q, with all the data that
we have, using the formulas and the theory explained in
the class obtain the theoretical results of those shown in
Table I. After this, by applying nodes, the base current
IB can be obtained: IR1 = IR2 + IB then we get that
IB = 0.75mA − 0.65mA = 100uA. With this new data
obtained can be found the beta of the transistor for which the
following formula is used
Ic
β = It should be emphasized that depending on the
IB
theoretical data and the practical data, very different betas
will be found, due to the small variations in the IB current
that generate large changes in the circuit in general.
M ULTI - FREQUENCY RESPONSE AND CIRCUIT GAIN
In Table II you can see two frequency ranges that describe
the operation of the Darlington transistor in this amplifier
by means of the curve that can be observed in Fig. 4, the
first goes from 1KHz to 50 KHz, in this range a curve is
described ascending with respect to the voltage gain, the
following range goes from 50KHz to 10MHz where the
curve begins to decay. Regarding these data it is seen that
the correct functioning of the transistor occurs at moderately
high frequencies, that is why the highest point is observed
at a frequency of 50KHz, this data is approximate since no
exact measurements were made to find the point in which the
greatest gain is given, however it can be said that this is in the
range 10KHz<fAvMAX<500KHz (fAvMAX = Frequency
where the gain is maximum).

R1=7.03[KΩ] R2=9.90[KΩ] Re=56.7[Ω] Rc=33.3[Ω]

V.theoric 5.27[V] 6.44[V] 5.01[V] 3.05[V]
V. measured 5.95[V] 6.56[V] 4.93[V] 2.97[V]
E.P 12.9 1.86 1.59 2.62
I. theoric 0.744[mA] 0.651[mA] 89.5[mA] 92.5[mA]
I.mesured 0.75[mA] 0.65[mA] 88.3[mA] 91.6[mA]
E.P 0.13 0.154 1.34 0.973
TABLE I
VOLTAGES AND CURRENTS OF EACH RESISTANCE OF THE POLARIZATION
CIRCUIT

Fig. 4. Curve: gain respect to frequency

IV. A NALYSIS OF RESULTS
For this section of the present report it should be known
that each working group used different Darlington transistors,
the analysis of results of this report constitutes in the uses
of a TIP142, in the circuit the resistances were modified to
achieve a polarization where Vce = 4, and got a collector
current Ic = 91.6mA. The errors that were observed in Table I
are mostly low, these arise due to inaccuracy in the measuring
instruments or faults of the user itself, also due to the internal
resistances of the cables used. There is an error equal to
In the next section we will proceed to analyze each of the
results obtained by observing in the oscilloscope the inputs
and outputs of the circuit, in terms of gain, frequency and
desface, all this varying the frequency and input voltage to an
extreme point before that the graphs begin to distort.
• f(Hz)= 1K:
For this frequency the oscilloscope showed a stable
AMPLIFICADOR DARLINGTON 3

graph when the input voltage was equal to 168mV, as 180 degrees out of phase.
can be seen in Fig.5 the graph represents input voltage
(yellow) and output voltage (blue) respectively. In these
conditions the gain is not total, in addition it is observed
that the graphs are not out of phase at 180 degrees.

Fig. 7. Input signal (yellow) and output (blue) at a frequency of 50KHz

Fig. 5. Input signal (yellow) and output (blue) at a frequency of 1KHz • f(Hz)= 500K:

In this case the initial conditions are raised to high

• f(Hz)= 10K:
At this point it can be seen that the gain has increased
considerably and it can be assumed that the transistor is
working in optimal conditions, as can be seen in Fig.6
the input and output signals are practically out of phase
180 degrees.
frequencies, however the voltage gain can still be said
to be efficient, however the idea is reiterated that the
maximum gain of this transistor will be between 10k and
500k of frequency . The signs begin to have different
faults to 180 (see Fig.8).

Fig. 8. Input signal (yellow) and output (blue) at a frequency of 500KHz

Fig. 6. Input signal (yellow) and output (blue) at a frequency of 10KHz

• f(Hz)= 50K:
Among all the data takings this was the one that
represented a greater gain, and therefore a better
functioning of the transistor, in Fig.7 a very considerable
gain is observed that goes from 200mV to 2.58V and in
addition the graph shows with much Precision signals
• f(Hz)= 1M:
You can notice the operating characteristic of the
transistor since its gain begins to decay when the
frequencies are very high and also the desface increases
each time. (See Fig.9)
• f(Hz)= 10M:
This frequency, being too large, causes the transistor to
AMPLIFICADOR DARLINGTON
Fig. 9. Input signal (yellow) and output (blue) at a frequency of 1MHz
stop working efficiently as can be seen in Fig.10. The
Vin is 140mV and Vout is 648mV, compared to the
operation at lower frequencies the gain of the transistor
is totally inefficient.
[1] D. Schilling and C. Belove, Circuitos electronicos: discretos e integrados,
[2] A. Guerrero and G. W. Diaz, Introducci?n de Errores en la Medici?n,
Fig. 10. Input signal (yellow) and output (blue) at a frequency of 10MHz
V. C ONCLUSIONS
• The Darlington transistor has an efficient operating range
at moderately high frequencies, this also means that the
input signal and the output signal are 180 degrees out of
phase when their operation is correct.
• This transistor has a greater phase shift at higher frequen-
cies compared to a simple transistor.
• Since the Darlington transistor is formed by the union
of two normal transistors, the total beta is obtained by
multiplying those of each one.
• Very precise measuring instruments are needed in order
to obtain an accurate Beta for calculations.
• To make the report we must first consider the operation of
the Darlington transistor which is composed of a partic-
ular design made by two bipolar transistors connected in
4
such a way that the current amplified by the first transistor
is further amplified by the second.
• The transistor that we use in practice is the TIP 142 which
has a beta of 500-1000 established in its data-sheet when
measuring the currents and by calculations, obtaining the
beta belonged to the range of the manual.
• The amplifier must be correctly polarized in direct cur-
rent, because if it is not, it will not be possible to observe
amplification in alternating current.
• To obtain the point (Q) of voltage and current the
resistances R1 and R2 were varied by means of a poten-
tiometer to work with the 4 [V] as the practice requested
us and obtain the correct values.
• It must be taken into account that when measuring
alternating current the wired must be optimized since
if they do not work as antennas receiving noise which
will not allow a good amplification, already taken into
account the assembly should take into account the lag
that presents the amplification in the oscilloscope.
• Regulating in the function generator the [mV] a little dis-
torted signal was obtained and we observed that after 10
MHz the amplification started to decay so we concluded
that this would be the maximum frequency point for the
amplification.
• It is necessary to regulate in a good way the oscilloscope
to have a good appreciation of the magnitude of amplifi-
cation that is being done.
R EFERENCES
3rd ed. McGraw-Hill, USA,1994.
1ra ed. Textos Acad?micos, Colombia: Medellin, 2007.