WHAT IS AN OSCILLATOR?

An oscillator is a circuit which produces a continuous, repeated, alternating

waveform without any input. Oscillators basically convert unidirectional current
flow from a DC source into an alternating waveform which is of the desired
frequency, as decided by its circuit components. The basic principle behind the
working of oscillators can be understood by analyzing the behavior of an LC tank
circuit shown in Figure 1 below, which employs an inductor L and a completely pre-
charged capacitor C as its components. Here, at first, the capacitor starts to discharge
via the inductor, which results in the conversion of its electrical energy into the
electromagnetic field, which can be stored in the inductor. Once the capacitor
discharges completely, there will be no current flow in the circuit.

However, by then, the stored electromagnetic field would have generated a

back-emf which results in the flow of current through the circuit in the same
direction as that of before. This current flow through the circuit continues until the
electromagnetic field collapses which result in the back-conversion of
electromagnetic energy into electrical form, causing the cycle to repeat. However,
now the capacitor would have charged with the opposite polarity, due to which one
gets an oscillating waveform as the output.
However, the oscillations which arise due to the inter-conversion between the two
energy-forms cannot continue forever as they would be subjected to the effect of
energy loss due to the resistance of the circuit. As a result, the amplitude of these
oscillations decreases steadily to become zero, which makes them damped in nature.
This indicates that in order to obtain the oscillations which are continuous and of
constant amplitude, one needs to compensate for the energy loss. Nevertheless, it is
to be noted that the energy supplied should be precisely controlled and must be equal
to that of the energy lost in order to obtain the oscillations with constant amplitude.
This is because, if the energy supplied is more than the energy lost, then the
amplitude of the oscillations will increase (Figure 2a) leading to a distorted output;
while if the energy supplied is less than the energy lost, then the amplitude of the
oscillations will decrease (Figure 2b) leading to unsustainable oscillations.

Practically, the oscillators are nothing but the amplifier circuits which are provided
with a positive or regenerative feedback wherein a part of the output signal is fed
back to the input (Figure 3). Here the amplifier consists of an amplifying active
element which can be a transistor or an Op-Amp and the back-fed in-phase signal is
held responsible to keep-up (sustain) the oscillations by making-up for the losses in
the circuit.
Once the power supply is switched ON, the oscillations will be initiated in the system
due to the electronic noise present in it. This noise signal travels around the loop,
gets amplified and converges to a single frequency sine wave very quickly. The
expression for the closed-loop gain of the oscillator shown in Figure 3 is given as:

A
G=
1 + Aβ

Where A is the voltage gain of the amplifier and β is the gain of the feedback
network. Here, if Aβ > 1, then the oscillations will increase in amplitude (Figure 2a);
while if Aβ < 1, then the oscillations will be damped (Figure 2b). On the other hand,
Aβ = 1 leads to the oscillations which are of constant amplitude (Figure 2c). In other
words, this indicates that if the feedback loop gain is small, then the oscillation dies-
out, while if the gain of the feedback loop is large, then the output will be distorted;
and only if the gain of feedback is unity, then the oscillations will be of constant
amplitude leading to self-sustained oscillatory circuit.
 CLASSIFICATION OF OSCILLATORS

There are many types of oscillators, but can broadly be classified into two main
categories – Harmonic Oscillators (also known as Linear Oscillators) and Relaxation
Oscillators. In a harmonic oscillator, the energy flow is always from the active
components to the passive components and the frequency of oscillations is decided
by the feedback path. Whereas in a relaxation oscillator, the energy is exchanged
between the active and the passive components and the frequency of oscillations is
determined by the charging and discharging time-constants involved in the process.
Further, harmonic oscillators produce low-distorted sine-wave outputs while the
relaxation oscillators generate non-sinusoidal (saw-tooth, triangular or square)
wave-forms. Oscillators can be also be classified into various types depending on
the parameter considered i.e. based on the feedback mechanism, the shape of the
output waveform, etc. These classifications types have been given below:

1. Classification Based on the Feedback Mechanism: Positive Feedback

Oscillators and Negative Feedback Oscillators.
2. Classification Based on the Shape of the Output Waveform: Sine Wave
Oscillators, Square or Rectangular Wave oscillators, Sweep Oscillators
(which produce saw-tooth output waveform), etc.
3. Classification Based on the Frequency of the Output Signal: Low-Frequency
Oscillators, Audio Oscillators (whose output frequency is of audio range),
Radio Frequency Oscillators, High-Frequency Oscillators, Very High-
Frequency Oscillators, Ultra High-Frequency Oscillators, etc.
4. Classification Based on the type of the Frequency Control Used: RC
Oscillators, LC Oscillators, Crystal Oscillators (which use a quartz crystal to
result in a frequency stabilized output waveform), etc.
 5. Classification Based on the Nature of the Frequency of Output
Waveform: Fixed Frequency Oscillators and Variable or Tunable Frequency
Oscillators.

OSCILLATOR APPLICATIONS

Oscillators are a cheap and easy way to generate specific Frequency of a signal. For
example, an RC oscillator is used to generate a Low Frequency signal, an LC
oscillator is used to generate a High Frequency signal, and an Op-Amp based
oscillator is used to generate a stable frequency. The frequency of oscillation can be
varied by varying the component value with potentiometer arrangements. Some
common applications of oscillators include:

 Quartz watches (which uses a crystal oscillator)

 Used in various audio systems and video systems
 Used in various radio, TV, and other communication devices
 Used in computers, metal detectors, stun guns, inverters, ultrasonic and radio
frequency applications.
 Used to generate clock pulses for microprocessors and micro-controllers
 Used in alarms and buzzes
 Used in metal detectors, stun guns, inverters, and ultrasonic
 Used to operate decorative lights (e.g. dancing lights)

The main types of Oscillators include:

 Wien Bridge Oscillator

 RC Phase Shift Oscillator
 Hartley Oscillator
 Voltage Controlled Oscillator
 Colpitts Oscillator
 Clapp Oscillators
 Crystal Oscillators
 Armstrong Oscillator
 Tuned Collector Oscillator
 Gunn Oscillator
 Cross-Coupled Oscillators
 Ring Oscillators
 Dynatron Oscillators
 Meissner Oscillators
 Opto-Electronic Oscillators
 Pierce Oscillators
 Robinson Oscillators
 Tri-tet Oscillators
 Pearson-Anson Oscillators
 Delay-Line Oscillators
 Electron Coupled Oscillators
 Multi-Wave Oscillators

BARKHAUSEN CRITERION
 Conditions which are required to be satisfied to operate the circuit as an
oscillator are called as “Barkhausen criterion” for sustained oscillations.
 The Barkhausen criteria should be satisfied by an amplifier with positive
feedback to ensure the sustained oscillations.
 For an oscillation circuit, there is no input signal “Vs”, hence the feedback
signal Vf itself should be sufficient to maintain the oscillations.
 The Barkhausen criterion states that:
  The loop gain is equal to unity in absolute magnitude, that is, | β A |=1
 The phase shift around the loop is zero or 360₀ (OR an integer multiple
of 2π: ∠ β A = 2 π n, n ∈ 0, 1, 2…)
 The product β A is called as the “loop gain”.

HARTLEY OSCILLATOR
Hartley Oscillator is a type of harmonic oscillator which was invented by Ralph
Hartley in 1915. These are the Tuned Circuit Oscillators which are used to produce
the waves in the range of radio frequency and hence are also referred to as RF
Oscillators. Its frequency of oscillation is decided by its tank circuit which has a
capacitor connected in parallel with the two serially connected inductors, as shown
by
 Here the RC is the collector resistor while the emitter resistor RE forms the
stabilizing network. Further the resistors R1 and R2 form the voltage divider bias
network for the transistor in common-emitter CE configuration. Next, the capacitors
Ci and Co are the input and output decoupling capacitors while the emitter capacitor
CE is the bypass capacitor used to bypass the amplified AC signals. All these
components are identical to those present in the case of a common-emitter amplifier
which is biased using a voltage divider network. However, Figure 1 also shows one
more set of components viz., the inductors L1 and L2 and the capacitor C which form
the tank circuit (shown in red enclosure).
On switching ON the power supply, the transistor starts to conduct, leading to an
increase in the collector current, IC which charges the capacitor C. On acquiring the
maximum charge feasible, C starts to discharge via the inductors L1 and L2. This
charging and discharging cycles result in the damped oscillations in the tank circuit.
The oscillation current in the tank circuit produces an AC voltage across the
inductors L1 and L2 which are out of phase by 180o as their point of contact is
grounded.
Further from the figure, it is evident that the output of the amplifier is applied across
the inductor L1 while the feedback voltage drawn across L2 is applied to the base of
the transistor. Thus one can conclude that the output of the amplifier is in-phase with
the tank circuit’s voltage and supplies back the energy lost by it while the energy fed
back to amplifier circuit will be out-of-phase by 180o. The feedback voltage which
is already 180o out-of-phase with the transistor is provided by an additional 180o
phase-shift due to the transistor action. Hence the signal which appears at the
transistor’s output will be amplified and will have a net phase-shift of 360o.
At this state, if one makes the gain of the circuit to be slightly greater than the
feedback ratio given by
(if the coils are wound on the same core with M indicating the mutual inductance)
then the circuit generates the oscillations which can be sustained by maintaining the
gain of the circuit to be equal to that of the feedback ratio. This causes the circuit in
Figure 1 to act as an oscillator as it would then satisfy both the conditions of the
Barkhausen criteria. The frequency of such an oscillator is given as

Where,

Hartley oscillators are available in many different configurations including series-or

shunt-fed, common-emitter or common-base configured, and BJT (Bipolar Junction
Transistor) or FET (Field Effect Transistor) amplifier based. Further it is to be noted
that the transistor-based amplifier section of Figure 1 can even be replaced by an
amplifier of any other kind like that of an inverting amplifier formed by an Op-
Amp as shown by Figure 2. The working of this kind of oscillator is similar to that
of the one shown earlier. However, here, the gain of the oscillator can be individually
adjusted using the feedback resistor Rf due to the fact that the gain of the inverting
amplifier is given as -Rf / R1. From this, it can be noted that, in this case, the gain of
the circuit is less dependent on the circuit elements of the tank circuit. This increases
the stability of the oscillator in terms of its frequency.

Hartley Oscillators are advantageous as they are easy-tunable circuits with a very
few components including a capacitor and either two inductors or a tapped coil. This
results in a constant amplitude output throughout its wide operational frequency
range which typically ranges from 20 KHz to 30 MHz. However, this kind of
oscillator is not suitable for low frequency as it would result in a large-sized inductor
which makes the circuit bulky. Further, the output of Hartley Oscillator has high
content of harmonics in it and hence does not suit for the applications which require
pure sine wave.
 COLPITTS OSCILLATOR

Colpitts Oscillator is a type of LC oscillator which falls under the category of

Harmonic Oscillator and was invented by Edwin Colpitts in 1918. Figure 1 shows a
typical Colpitts oscillator with a tank circuit in which an inductor L is connected in
parallel to the serial combination of capacitors C1 and C2 (shown by the red
enclosure).

Other components in the circuit are the same as that found in the case of common-
emitter CE which is biased using a voltage divider network i.e. RC is the collector
resistor, RE is the emitter resistor which is used to stabilize the circuit and the
resistors R1 and R2 form the voltage divider bias network. Further, the capacitors Ci
and Co are the input and output decoupling capacitors while the emitter capacitor CE
is the bypass capacitor used to bypass the amplified AC signals.
Here, as the power supply is switched ON, the transistor starts to conduct, increasing
the collector current IC due to which the capacitors C1 and C2 get charged. On
acquiring the maximum charge feasible, they start to discharge via the inductor L.
During this process, the electrostatic energy stored in the capacitor gets converted
into magnetic flux which in turn is stored within the inductor in the form of
electromagnetic energy. Next, the inductor starts to discharge which charges the
capacitors once again. Likewise, the cycle continues which gives rise to the
oscillations in the tank circuit.
Further the figure shows that the output of the amplifier appears across C1 and thus
is in-phase with the tank circuit’s voltage and makes-up for the energy lost by re-
supplying it. On the other hand, the voltage feedback to the transistor is the one
obtained across the capacitor C2, which means the feedback signal is out-of-phase
with the voltage at the transistor by 180o. This is due to the fact that the voltages
developed across the capacitors C1 and C2 are opposite in polarity as the point where
they join is grounded. Further, this signal is provided with an additional phase-shift
of 180o by the transistor which results in a net phase-shift of 360o around the loop,
satisfying the phase-shift criterion of Barkhausen principle.
At this state, the circuit can effectively act as an oscillator producing sustained
oscillations by carefully monitoring the feedback ratio given by (C1 / C2). The
frequency of such a Colpitts Oscillator depends on the components in its tank circuit
and is given by
Where, the Ceff is the effective capacitance of the capacitors expressed as

As a result, these oscillators can be tuned either by varying their inductance or the
capacitance. However the variation of L does not yield a smooth variation. Hence
they are usually tuned by varying the capacitances which are generally ganged, due
to which a change in any one of them changes both of them. Nevertheless, the
process is tedious and requires special large-valued capacitor. Thus, the Colpitts
oscillators are seldom preferred in the applications where in the frequency varies but
are more popular as fixed frequency oscillators due to their simple design. Further
they offer better stability in comparison with the Hartley Oscillators as they are
exempted from the mutual inductance effect present in-between the two inductors of
the latter case.
Apart from the BJT-based Colpitts Oscillator shown, they are also realizable using
valves or FET (Field Effect Transistor) or Op-Amp. Figure 2 shows such a Colpitts
oscillator which uses an Op-Amp in inverting configuration in its amplifier section
while the tank circuit remains similar to that in the case of Figure 1. This kind of
circuit functions almost analogous to that of the one explained earlier. However, here
the gain of the oscillator can be adjusted individually just by using the feedback
resistor Rf, as the gain of the inverting amplifier is given as -Rf / R1. From this, it can
be noted that, in this case, the gain of the circuit is less dependent on the circuit
elements of the tank circuit. Typically, the operating frequency of the Colpitts
oscillators ranges from 20 KHz to 300 MHz. However they can even be used for
microwave applications as their capacitors provide low reactance path for the high-
frequency signals. This results in better frequency stability as well as a better
sinusoidal output waveform. Moreover, they are also extensively used as surface
acoustical wave (SAW) resonators, sensors and in mobile and communication
systems.

RC PHASE-SHIFT OSCILLATORS
RC phase-shift oscillators use resistor-capacitor (RC) network (Figure 1) to provide
the phase-shift required by the feedback signal. They have excellent frequency
stability and can yield a pure sine wave for a wide range of loads.
Ideally a simple RC network is expected to have an output which leads the input by
90o.However, in reality, the phase-difference will be less than this as the capacitor
used in the circuit cannot be ideal. Mathematically the phase angle of the RC network
is expressed as

Where, XC = 1/(2πfC) is the reactance of the capacitor C and R is the resistor. In

oscillators, these kind of RC phase-shift networks, each offering a definite phase-
shift can be cascaded so as to satisfy the phase-shift condition led by the Barkhausen
Criterion. One such example is the case in which RC phase-shift oscillator is
formed by cascading three RC phase-shift networks, each offering a phase-shift of
60o, as shown by Figure 2.
Here the collector resistor RC limits the collector current of the transistor, resistors
R1 and R (nearest to the transistor) form the voltage divider network while the
emitter resistor RE improves the stability. Next, the capacitors CE and Co are the
emitter by-pass capacitor and the output DC decoupling capacitor, respectively.
Further, the circuit also shows three RC networks employed in the feedback path.
This arrangement causes the output waveform to shift by 180 o during its course of
travel from output terminal to the base of the transistor. Next, this signal will be
shifted again by 180o by the transistor in the circuit due to the fact that the phase-
difference between the input and the output will be 180 o in the case of common
emitter configuration. This makes the net phase-difference to be 360o, satisfying the
phase-difference condition. One more way of satisfying the phase-difference
condition is to use four RC networks, each offering a phase-shift of 45o. Hence it
can be concluded that the RC phase-shift oscillators can be designed in many ways
as the number of RC networks in them is not fixed. However it is to be noted that,
although an increase in the number of stages increases the frequency stability of the
circuit, it also adversely affects the output frequency of the oscillator due to the
loading effect. The generalized expression for the frequency of oscillations produced
by a RC phase-shift oscillator is given by

Where, N is the number of RC stages formed by the resistors R and the capacitors
C. Further, as is the case for most type of oscillators, even the RC phase-shift
oscillators can be designed using an Op-Amp as its part of the amplifier section
(Figure 3). Nevertheless, the mode of working remains the same while it is to be
noted that, here, the required phase-shift of 360o is offered collectively by the RC
phase-shift networks and the Op-Amp working in inverted configuration.

Further, it is to be noted that the frequency of the RC phase-shift oscillators can be

varied by changing either the resistors or the capacitors. However, in general, the
resistors are kept constant while the capacitors are gang-tuned. Next, by comparing
the RC phase-shift oscillators with LC oscillators, one can note that, the former
uses more number of circuit components than the latter one. Thus, the output
frequency produced from the RC oscillators can deviate much from the calculated
value rather than in the case of LC oscillators. Nevertheless, they are used as local
oscillators for synchronous receivers, musical instruments and as low and/or audio-
frequency generators.

WIEN-BRIDGE OSCILLATOR
A Wien-Bridge Oscillator is a type of phase-shift oscillator which is based upon a
Wien-Bridge network (Figure 1a) comprising of four arms connected in a bridge
fashion. Here two arms are purely resistive while the other two arms are a
combination of resistors and capacitors. In particular, one arm has resistor and
capacitor connected in series (R1 and C1) while the other has them in parallel (R2 and
C2). This indicates that these two arms of the network behave identical to that of
high pass filter or low pass filter, mimicking the behavior of the circuit shown by
Figure 1b.

In this circuit, at high frequencies, the reactance of the capacitors C 1 and C2 will be
much less due to which the voltage V0 will become zero as R2 will be shorted. Next,
at low frequencies, the reactance of the capacitors C1 and C2 will become very high.
However even in this case, the output voltage V0 will remain at zero only, as the
capacitor C1 would be acting as an open circuit. This kind of behavior exhibited by
the Wien-Bridge network makes it a lead-lag circuit in the case of low and high
frequencies, respectively.

Wien Bridge Oscillator Frequency Calculation

Nevertheless, amidst these two high and low frequencies, there exists a particular
frequency at which the values of the resistance and the capacitive reactance will
become equal to each other, producing the maximum output voltage. This frequency
is referred to as resonant frequency. The resonant frequency for a Wein Bridge
Oscillator is calculated using the following formula:

Further, at this frequency, the phase-shift between the input and the output will
become zero and the magnitude of the output voltage will become equal to one-third
of the input value. In addition, it is seen that the Wien-Bridge will be balanced only
at this particular frequency. In the case of Wien-Bridge oscillator, the Wien-Bridge
network of Figure 1 will be used in the feedback path as shown in Figure 2. The
circuit diagram for a Wein Oscillator using a BJT (Bipolar Junction Transistor) is
shown below:
In these oscillators, the amplifier section will comprise of two-stage amplifier
formed by the transistors, Q1 and Q2, wherein the output of Q2 is back-fed as an input
to Q1 via Wien-Bridge network (shown within the blue enclosure in the figure). Here,
the noise inherent in the circuit will cause a change in the base current of Q1 which
will appear at its collector point after being amplified with a phase-shift of 180o.
This is fed as an input to Q2 via C4 and gets further amplified and appears with an
additional phase-shift of 180o. This makes the net phase-difference of the signal fed
back to the Wien-Bridge network to be 360o, satisfying phase-shift criterion to obtain
sustained oscillations.
However, this condition will be satisfied only in the case of resonant frequency, due
to which the Wien-Bridge oscillators will be highly selective in terms of frequency,
leading to a frequency-stabilized design.

Wien-bridge oscillators can even be designed using Op-Amps as a part of their

amplifier section, as shown by Figure 3. However it is to be noted that, here, the Op-
Amp is required to act as a non-inverting amplifier as the Wien-Bridge network
offers zero phase-shift. Further, from the circuit, it is evident that the output voltage
is fed back to both inverting and non-inverting input terminals.
At resonant frequency, the voltages applied to the inverting and non-inverting
terminals will be equal and in-phase with each other. However, even here, the
voltage gain of the amplifier needs to be greater than 3 to start oscillations and equal
to 3 to sustain them. In general, these kind of Op-Amp-based Wien Bridge
Oscillators cannot operate above 1 MHz due to the limitations imposed on them by
their open-loop gain.
Wien-Bridge networks are low frequency oscillators which are used to generate
audio and sub-audio frequencies ranging between 20 Hz to 20 KHz. Further, they
provide stabilized, low distorted sinusoidal output over a wide range of frequency
which can be selected using decade resistance boxes. In addition, the oscillation
frequency in this kind of circuit can be varied quite easily as it just needs variation
of the capacitors C1 and C2. However these oscillators require large number of circuit
components and can be operated up to a certain maximum frequency only.

QUESTIONS TO DO
1. State and briefly explain Barkhausen Criteria for Oscillations.
2. What is an oscillator? What is its need? Discuss the advantages of oscillators.
3. What do you understand by damped and undamped electrical oscillations?
Illustrate your answer with examples.
4. Write short note on Crystal Oscillator.
5. Discuss the drawbacks associated with LC oscillators.