Amplitude demodulation method

Mishuk et a/.675,676 have applied the modified amplitude demodulation method to electrochemically polished pc-Bi in aqueous NaF solution. The curves of the real component of the nonlinear impedance Z" as a function of the electrode potential, unlike pc-Cd and pc-Pb, intersect for various cNaF at E - -0.62 V (SCE),674 i.e., at Ea=0 for pc-Bi, as obtained by impedance.666-672 The different behavior of pc-Bi from pc-Cd and pc-Pb at a > 0 has been explained by the semimetallic nature of pc-Bi electrodes. A comparison of inner-layer nonlinear parameter values for Hg, Cd, and Bi electrodes at a < 0 shows that the electrical double-layer structure at negative charges is independent of the metal.675,676... 

In studying a system by a nonlinear impedance method, use is made of the system s nonlinear characteristics. A variant of the nonlinear impedance method called the amplitude demodulation method was first applied in the electrochemistry of semiconductors, in particular to diamond electrodes, in [83] (see the quoted paper for the theory of the method and the experimental set-up). A perturbing current signal of a high frequency oo, modulated in amplitude at a low frequency 2, is applied to electrochemical cell the demodulated low-frequency voltage signal is to be measured at the frequency 2. In accordance with the theory of the method [83], under the condition of formation of a depletion layer in a semiconductor electrode, the in-phase component of the cell response Re h is inversely proportional to d(C 2)/dE. Hence, for the acceptor concentration in the semiconductor we have [compare Eq. (1)] ... 

Also in the demodulation method, controlled-current perturbation is applied, which means that here, too, eqn. (84) is to be used to substitute El by a term containing the squared amplitude of the current density,. ... 

Prior to describing the possible applications of laser-diode fluorometry, it is important to understand the two methods now used to measure fluorescence lifetimes these being the time-domain (Tl)/4 5 24 and frequency-domain (FD) or phase-modulation methods.(25) In TD fluorometry, the sample is excited by a pulse of light followed by measurement of the time-dependent intensity. In FD fluorometry, the sample is excited with amplitude-modulated light. The lifetime can be found from the phase angle delay and demodulation of the emission relative to the modulated incident light. We do not wish to fuel the debate of TD versus FD methods, but it is clear that phase and modulation measurements can be performed with simple and low cost instrumentation, and can provide excellent accuracy with short data acquisition times. 

The original signal frequencies are recovered by demodulation of the amplified signal. In the simplest case the demodulation consists of rectification and subsequent low-pass filtering. A better method uses a synchronous rectifier where the a.c. signal is multiplied by a sine or a square wave of constant amplitude derived from the chopper action. The phase of this reference frequency must be properly adjusted the... 

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