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Projects, Designs, and Technical Stuff / Re: Homebrew Lock-In Amplifier
« Last post by RoGeorge on Today at 12:17:58 pm »A LIA only works if you have a strong and clean reference signal, and in sync with the small and noisy signal to be measure, and only works at a constant frequency, or with very slow variations. A LIA does not decode an unknown signal, it only averages the signal by a pattern given by the reference signal.
In regards to the max frequency, a classic LIA usually goes up to 100kHz or so, but they are very sensitive and very low noise in their analog input stage. In contrast with that, the oscilloscope method is less sensitive, more noisy, but can work at frequencies as high as the oscilloscope can display, so virtually hundreds of MHz. Which one to use depends of the measurement that needs to be done.
For what experiments do you need the LIA for, what do you plan to measure with it?
In regards to the max frequency, a classic LIA usually goes up to 100kHz or so, but they are very sensitive and very low noise in their analog input stage. In contrast with that, the oscilloscope method is less sensitive, more noisy, but can work at frequencies as high as the oscilloscope can display, so virtually hundreds of MHz. Which one to use depends of the measurement that needs to be done.
For what experiments do you need the LIA for, what do you plan to measure with it?