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These pages, or units, are a review of electronics based on laboratory experiments, with little purely
theoretical work or comprehensive treatment of any topic. Nevertheless, most of the fundamental
concepts of electronics are discussed and illustrated. The emphasis is on understanding. This is not a
collection of electronics projects, and there is no emphasis on construction practices, though some
construction may be interesting and valuable. There is no use of SPICE-like circuit calculations, which
can also be informative, but is no substitute for prototyping and experimentation. An effort has been made
to include interesting historical electronics, such as vacuum tubes and Nixie displays, which also
furnishes a deeper understanding of the fundamentals. References are given to further information.
There is more here than can be put into a typical electronics course of 30 or 40 lectures, which should
concentrate on the fundamentals. These are the nature of amplification (transistors, for example),
feedback, stability, relaxation oscillators and phase-locked loops.
The author has taught electronics at university level, and has a rather low opinion of most of the courses
and texts available. This is mainly the consequence of the instructors being instructors and researchers,
not electronic engineers in anything but name, often leaving the laboratory in charge of a subordinate of
limited knowledge and experience. The laboratory itself is often managed in that wonderful orderly
fashion that makes it of limited usefulness and little fascination, characterized by set experiments and
"writeups" that teach little, as well as by physical surroundings that are nothing like a real workbench. For
learning electronics, however, the laboratory is absolutely essential. The only way to handle a laboratory,
incidentally, is to assign to each student his own, lockable, bench. The way not to handle it is to "set up"
benches in the laboratory in advance of each "experiment" and otherwise to pack everything away in a
single storeroom.
I know very little of the quality of electronics instruction in high schools and trade schools, but I expect it
is no better than in universities, and possibly the less said about it, the better. Actually, it has probably
disappeared in American schools. In any case, its benefits will depend on the qualities of the individual
instructor, qualities that are not valued by the educational establishment, like intelligence, knowledge and
skill.
As a hobby, electronics has much to recommend it. It is useful, clean, safe, educational and even
inexpensive, considering other hobbies. Unlike chemistry, it will not attract the attention of the
authorities. In general, hobbyists have much to recommend them over university professors, although
they generally err on the other end of the scale, being deficient in theory and often holders of fixed,
though erroneous, ideas. Electronics is best thought of as a semi-professional hobby, where some
application is in mind, and is certainly essential for radio or electronic control. A complete workbench
can be assembled for around $2000, including 100 MHz scope, and a large assortment of components and
tools. Interesting work can be done for less than $200, however, with only a digital multimeter (DMM)
and a breadboard--details are given in another unit.
Like all hobbies with a scientific, technical or skilled mechanical foundation, in recent years electronics
and amateur radio have withered in the United States, while seeming to retain vitality in Europe. It has
become much more difficult to exercise such hobbies, but it is still possible to some degree, and there
seems to be a nucleus of intelligent amateurs to sustain them. This trend has been noticed by others. For
example, look at "R.I.P. for D.I.Y.", in Scientific American, May 2002, p. 26. Scientific American, for its
part, killed The Amateur Scientist column some time ago, and it disappeared like any mathematics in this
advertising-heavy and increasingly light journal. These are not trivial trends--they are already being
reflected in the declining technological knowledge of the American public, and in the loss of skilled
craftsmanship. In fact, Scientific American would be more aptly titled Nonmathematical American these
days, and the term "Scientific American" considered for an honored place in the Halls of Oxymoron. A
recent issue had not one equation, and only two graphs, one illustrating scientific plagiarism, and the
other the number of genomes decoded. Two articles, at least, mentioned things that have never been done
as all but everyday events (detecting gravitational waves and making a quantum computer). The
publishers no doubt know their market well.
To use and understand this material, the reader should already know DC circuits and how to use a DMM
(digital multimeter), how to use algebra and trigonometry and some calculus. A university course in
electronics could also be helpful, but do not expect too much from it. The mathematics is absolutely
essential, and anyone wanting to understand electronics should acquire skills in algebra, trigonometry and
calculus. There is no way around this. Mathematical modelling works exceptionally well in electronics,
and is always relied upon whenever possible.
When I began this series in the summer of 2001, I intended only to review some fundamentals and useful
circuits. However, it tended to grow and branch out as interesting possibilities presented themselves. I
hoped to include a brief look at vacuum tubes, but this expanded greatly when I discovered I could obtain
a great variety of tubes and demonstrate their interesting features. This is an exellent supplement for those
who know transistors, greatly broadening the understanding. I thought experiments with cathode-ray
tubes and photomultipliers were not feasible, but both subjects became possible at reasonable cost, and I
was finally able to build circuits that were impossible for me when the devices were still normally
available. Some subjects may be repeated in later units, usually with a different emphasis and
applications.
The units are written after I repeat the experiments mentioned yet again, with any improvements I can
devise, and the actual results are stated. All circuits have been tested in the laboratory, and are not simply
figments of the imagination. I cannot emphasize too strongly the benefits of actual testing, even of
circuits that seem straightforward and simple. The presentation is in a form that seems most informative
to me: just having to write it up is good practice, and reveals gaps in knowledge that have to be filled. I
have done it as a comprehensive review for my own purposes. It is not designed for any particular
audience, and if it helps you, fine. If not, there are many, many other places to learn electronics.
Remember, you didn't have to pay anything for it! Best of luck and success.
Electrons
Electronics is so-called from the light, negatively-charged elementary particle the electron, which is the
usual carrier of energy in all electronic phenomena. The charge of the electron is -1.602 x 10-19 coulomb,
and its mass is 9.10 x 10-31 kg. Despite its small size, the effects it produces on a macroscopic scale are
very much like those of a particle, and individual electrons can even be perceived (indirectly). On a
microscopic scale, the electron exhibits wave properties, and excellently illustrates quantum mechanics.
The fact that the charge is negative is a purely arbitrary convention, resulting from historical accidents.
The discrete nature of matter first became evident in chemistry, with the laws of combination and the
effects of electrolysis. 96,490 coulombs of charge, a Faraday, produced one mole of univalent substance,
showing that there was a great amount of electrical charge in matter, although it was precisely balanced to
show no net effect on a macroscopic scale, except in very special circumstances. Electrical forces are, in
fact, responsible for the structure of matter, so it is no wonder that electrolysis occurs. The chemist G.
Johnstone Stoney (1826-1911) realized that electric charge must be discrete as early as 1874, and in 1891
gave the elementary unit the name of electron. Since Avogadro's number was not well known at the time,
his estimate of the electronic charge was inaccurate, but the important thing was the realization of the
discreteness of charge. Of course, he had no concept of the electron as a material particle, only as a unit of
charge.
The Greek word hlektron referred both to the semi-precious ornament amber, and to an alloy of gold and
silver, approximately 80 Au, 20 Ag, that was used in early coinage because of the difficulty of separating
gold and silver. In the latter meaning, it has become "electrum." It was the meaning as amber that gave
the word "electricity" first to the phenomena of static electricity and later to the whole field. Amber, when
rubbed, develops a surface charge and will attract light objects. It happens to be exactly the same as
"electron," but purely by accident.
Sir William Crookes (1832-1919) was led to the study of cathode rays by his work on high vacuum,
connected with accurate weighing in the determination of the atomic weight of Thallium. His experiments
began in 1873, and in 1875 resulted in the invention of the radiometer, in which vanes are made to rotate
when light falls upon them. The cause of rotation was eventually determined to be the collisions of
molecules of the rarefied gas, not light pressure. In such a roundabout way he was brought to the study of
electrical discharges at low pressures, in which he repeated much of Hittorf's work, which was unknown
to him. The Hittorf Dark Space is also known as the Crookes Dark Space. He showed that the rays were
deflected by electric and magnetic fields (which seems to have been a fairly common observation).
Crookes spoke of "radiant matter," using a term introduced by Faraday, without a very clear
understanding of what it might be. In 1895 Jean Perrin (1870-1942) showed that the cathode rays were
deflected by a magnetic field as if they were negative charges, which suggested that they were streams of
particles.
Determination of the charge on the electron was the next order of business. This was done by balancing
the gravitational and electric forces on small charged droplets of an aerosol. The mass of a droplet was
determined by measuring its rate of fall under gravity alone. Since
electric forces are much greater than gravitational forces, the
disparity between the small charge of the electron and the large
mass of a droplet was reduced, and the method proved practical.
Robert A. Millikan (1868-1953) improved the methods of
Thomson and his co-workers, and in 1906 published good figures
for the electronic charge, which were steadily improved. Now, the
mass of an electron could be determined accurately, together with Avogadro's number and the mass of the
hydrogen atom. The knowledge of the nature of the electron has been essential to the later development of
electronics.
Electrons have many other interesting properties. The apparent mass increases as the speed approaches
the speed of light, demonstrating relativistic mechanics. Their lightness also makes quantum-mechanical
effects apparent. Electrons have been diffracted like waves, and associate in pairs to produce
superconductivity, a macroscopic quantum state. They have an angular momentum, called spin, which
gives rise to a magnetic field that is observed in ferromagnetism, where many electrons are all lined up in
spin direction. There is a positive electron, a positron, that is antimatter. On meeting an ordinary electron,
the pair unite to create photons of electromagnetic energy, the particles disappearing. Conversely, high-
energy photons can create electron-positron pairs.
Some of the experiments on vacuum tubes in these pages allow you to observe regions where dense
electron beams are moving, but you cannot see the electrons, because they interact only very weakly with
visible light, which passes by them without being disturbed.
In this series of pages, semiconductor electronics, gaseous discharges, thermionic emission, vacuum
tubes, cathode-ray tubes, photoelectricity and other topics recall the events of the discovery of the
electron and its application to technology. For the effects of electric and magnetic fields on electrons, see
The Hall Effect. For electrons in metals, see Photoelectricity. For electrons in semiconductors, see
Optoelectronics. There is a short discussion of glow discharges in Relaxation Oscillators, in connection
with the NE-2 glow lamp. In electronics, we make use almost exclusively of the electric force on the
electron, which allows it to transfer energy from one point to another.