Wide-band current preamplifier for conductance measurements with large input capacitance

TL;DR

This paper introduces a wide-band current preamplifier based on a composite operational amplifier, achieving high bandwidth and low noise suitable for conductance measurements with large input capacitance.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel composite operational amplifier design that significantly increases bandwidth for conductance measurements with large input capacitance.

Findings

Bandwidth of about 100 kHz with 1 nF input capacitance

Current noise of approximately 46 fA/√Hz at 1 kHz

Requires roughly 10% of the integration time compared to conventional preamplifiers

Abstract

A wide-band current preamplifier based on a composite operational amplifier is proposed. It has been shown that the bandwidth of the preamplifier can be significantly increased by enhancing the effective open-loop gain of the composite preamplifier. The described preamplifier with current gain 10$^7$ V/A showed the bandwidth of about 100 kHz with 1 nF input shunt capacitance. The current noise of the amplifier was measured to be about 46 fA/$\sqrt{\rm Hz}$ at 1 kHz, close to the design noise minimum. The voltage noise was found to be about 2.9 nV/$\sqrt{\rm Hz}$ at 1 kHz, which is in a good agreement with the value expected for the operational amplifier used in the input stage. By analysing the total noise produced by the preamplifier we found the optimal frequency range suitable for the fast lock-in measurements to be from 1 kHz to 2 kHz. To get the same signal-to-noise ratio, the reported preamplifier requires roughly 10% of the integration time used in measurements made with a conventional preamplifier.