Low-noise programmable voltage source

Abstract

This paper presents the design and testing of a low-noise programmable voltage source. Such a piece of instrumentation is often required as part of the measurement setup needed to test electronic devices without introducing noise from the power supply (such as photodetectors, resistors or transistors). Although its construction is based on known configurations, here the discussion is focused on the characterization and the minimization of the output noise, especially at very low frequencies. The design relies on a digital-to-analog converter, proper lowpass filters, and a low-noise Junction Field-Effect Transistors (JFET) based voltage follower. Because of the very low level of output noise, in some cases we had to resort to cross-correlation in order to reduce the background noise of the amplifiers used for the characterization of the programmable source. Indeed, when two√ paralleled IF9030√ JFETs are used√ in the voltage follower, the output noise can be as low as 3 nV/ Hz, 0.6 nV/ Hz and 0.4 nV/ Hz at 1 Hz, 10 Hz and 100 Hz, respectively. The output voltage drift was also characterized and a stability of ±25 µV over 3 h was obtained. In order to better appreciate the performance of the low-noise voltage source that we have designed, its noise performances were compared with those of a set-up based on one of the best low-noise solid-state voltage regulators available on the market. Actual measurements of the current noise in a type-II superlattice photodetector are reported in which the programmable source was used to provide the voltage bias to the device.