Lock-in Amplifier

Manufacturer: Zürich Instruments

Lock-in amplifiers are a special type of amplifiers that can detect and measure very small AC signals from an extremely noisy measurement. The signal of interest is extracted by a phase-sensitive detection that singles out the sinusoidal component at the proper reference frequency and phase from the background "noisy" signals (i.e. at other frequencies than the frequency of interest) that get rejected. Depending on the dynamic reserve of the instrument, signals many thousands times smaller than noise components, potentially fairly close by in frequency, can still be reliably detected. A nice explanation note of the working principle of Lock-in amplifiers can be found external pagehere.

The HF2LI is an advanced digital lock-in amplifier with an extended signal frequency range of 50 MHz. With its 2 physical units, it replaces 2 traditional lock-in amplifiers for measurement setups; its 128-bit processing delivers unprecedented performance. The HF2LI is a technology milestone in both the support of existing applications and in the enabling of the development of many new ones.

Key Features:

· 2 independent lock-in units

· 1 fundamental and 2 harmonic frequencies per lock-in unit

· 1 µHz - 50 MHz analog bandwidth

· 210 MSample/s, 14 bit A/D conversion

· 5 nV/√Hz input voltage noise

· 1 µs - 500 s time constant

· 6 to 48 dB/oct filter slope (1st to 8th order)

· 4x 1 MSample/s, 16 bit, ±10 V auxiliary analog output

· 2x 500 kSample/s, 16 bit, ±10 V auxiliary analog input

· USB 2.0 high-speed host connection

· Included graphical user interface and driver software: ziControl, ziAPI, ziServer