Experiment 1 pre-lab

Instructions: Perform/answer the following. Print your answers on at most two sheets of A4 paper.

Pre-lab question #1 [2pts]: What is a light-emitting diode (LED)? Briefly discuss its operation. Include
diagrams.

PART I. Drawing the circuit.

1. Run SIMetrix. You should see a window showing the text, "Welcome to SIMetrix/SIMPLIS Intro"
2. Press File > New Schematic. You should see a blank sheet with grid points.
3. We want to draw the ff. circuit which contains: (1) a DC voltage source, (2) a resistor, and (3)
two diodes.
1 k

9V

Figure 1. Circuit to be analyzed using SIMetrix

rotate draw wire

diode
resistor ground (GND) voltage source
Figure 2. Icons for drawing a circuit schematic

To include a voltage source, click on the Place Voltage Source icon (see Fig. 2), then click on the
desired location. Similarly, use the icons for the resistor and diodes. We also need to include
ground to serve as the zero-volt reference. Your schematic should now be similar to Fig. 3a.

1K
R1 1K

R1
5 5
V1 D1N4148 D1N4148 V1 D1N4148 D1N4148
D1 D2 D1 D2

(a) (b)
Figure 3. Circuit schematic (a) before and (b) after rotating the components.

4. To rotate a device: (1) click on the device, then (2) click the Rotate icon. This command rotates
the device 90 degrees clockwise. Clicking the Rotate icon more than once further rotates the
device. Rotate the resistor and diodes so that they look similar to the figure below.

5. To connect the devices, use the Wire Mode icon. (See Fig. 2)
 1K

R1

5
V1 D1N4148 D1N4148
D1 D2

Figure 4. Circuit schematic after connecting the devices.

(For some reason, the pdf file does not display the connection between D1 and GND.)

PART II. Modifying device values

1. Whenever a device is included in the schematic, SIMetrix displays (1) the circuit symbol, (2) the
device label, and (3) the device value. The following table shows the device attributes for our
circuit:
Table I. Attributes of circuit elements in Fig. 4
Circuit element Device label Device value
voltage source V1 5 volts
resistor R1 1K ohms
diode D1 1N4148
D2 1N4148
2. To modify the device value, double-click on a device. For example, for the resistor, you will see
the following window:

Figure 5. Choosing the resistance

Say you want to change the resistance to 500 . Then type 500 in the Result tab, and click OK.
For values requiring prefixes, use k for kilo- and Meg for mega-. For this pre-lab, leave the
resistance as 1 k.

Change the value of the voltage source to 9 V.

Pre-lab question #2 [3 pts]: double-click on any of the diodes. What does SIMetrix display?
Describe using at most two sentences. [If you say more than two sentences, I will only
consider the first two sentences.]
PART III. Circuit simulation

1. On the top of the window, click Probe > Place Fixed Voltage Probe. Place it on top of D1.
1k
D2-cathode
R1

9
V1 D1N4148 D1N4148
D1 D2

Figure 6. Placing a fixed voltage probe

(Again, for some reason, the pdf file does not display the connection between D2 and GND. @_@)

2. Now, click Simulator > Choose analysis. You should see Fig. 7.

Figure 7. Choose analysis window

As in Fig. 7, there are various analysis modes (Transient, AC, DC, etc.) For this pre-lab, we will use
DC analysis.

Figure 8. DC analysis tab.

 The DC analysis tab asks for (1) a start value, (2) a stop value, (3) number of data points, and (4)
the device name. What we want to accomplish in this pre-lab is to observe the circuit behavior as
we change the value of the voltage source from -9 V to +9 V.

To do this, enter the following values:

start value = -9
stop value = +9
number of points = 100 (more data points give us a smoother curve)
device name = V1 (the device name of the voltage source)

Next, click on the DC sweep checkbox. Now you should see something equivalent to Fig. 9.
Click OK to save the simulation parameters.

Figure 9. DC sweep simulation parameters

3. Finally, click Simulator > Run. You should see a curve.

Pre-lab question #3 [5pts]: Save the graph as a picture, and print it. What is the output voltage (of
the probe) for the following values of V1: -9 V, -5V, -1 V, -0.5 V, +0.5 V, +1 V, +5V, +9V ? Write
your answers in mV, correct to two decimal places.