Past exam of the physics A course of the University of Cambridge 2018 Paper 1 Section D D13 c Solution Created 2026-10-18 Updated 2026-10-20
Johnson-Nyquist noise is equilibrium electrical fluctuation caused by thermal agitation of charge carriers. A resistor can generate a fluctuating terminal voltage even when its mean current is zero. In the classical frequency range , the fluctuation-dissipation theorem relates this noise to dissipative resistance. The one-sided voltage power spectral density of an unloaded resistor isEquivalently its short-circuit current spectrum is . Over a flat bandwidth the rms voltage is . A real measurement instead integrates over positive frequency, with loading and the filter's effective noise bandwidth included. A flat spectrum does not imply an infinite physically measurable variance; the circuit and the quantum high-frequency regime limit the ideal white-noise model.
Cooling or narrowing the accepted bandwidth reduces thermal noise. Reducing resistance lowers its open-circuit voltage noise but raises its short-circuit current noise, so the appropriate choice depends on source impedance and amplifier loading. Thermal agitation is not a fluctuating externally applied voltage that can be removed by perfect shielding alone.
Shot noise arises from discrete transfer events. In the simplest shot noise counting model, equal charges arrive independently at constant rate . A gate of duration contains a Poisson number , with mean and variance . Therefore mean current is , and the averaged-current variance is . The corresponding one-sided low-frequency spectrum isfor a flat accepted bandwidth. Electron current has . Vacuum emission or photodetection can approximate independent arrivals; correlations in a conductor can suppress or enhance the fluctuations. Discreteness by itself does not guarantee Poisson statistics.
For a fixed mean current the ideal shot-noise formula is not proportional to temperature, whereas Johnson noise is. Increasing current raises absolute shot noise but lowers its fractional size, since . Both can appear approximately white within a useful frequency band, and independent noise powers add after referring them to a common measurement point. Their spectra must use the same convention: two-sided densities are half these one-sided values. A real low-current experiment can also contain amplifier noise, low-frequency drift and correlated transfer noise, so a mean current or resistance alone does not specify its complete noise budget.
Past exam of the physics A course of the University of Cambridge 2019 Paper 1 Section A 4 Solution 2026-10-18
Ohm's law gives the mean electric currentFor an estimate, assume the shot noise counting model: electron transfers are independent, so the number recorded in an interval has a Poisson distribution with expectation value and variance . One measurement has relative standard deviation . Averaging independent intervals reduces this to , soabout minutes in total.
This is a one-standard deviation, shot noise estimate. A resistance and mean voltage alone do not specify the actual current fluctuations: a real resistor also has Johnson-Nyquist noise, and electron-transfer correlations can change the shot noise. Its temperature, measurement bandwidth and noise model would be needed for an unconditional acquisition time.
The first-order grating equation is , so , about lines per millimetre. For equally illuminated lines,Principal maxima stay at the same angles, their peaks scale as for fixed illumination per line, and their angular widths shrink as . The resolving power of a diffraction grating is . Thus first order needs and illuminated width .
The grating dispersion follows by differentiation: . With a detector centred on the chief ray, one pixel corresponds approximately toThis exceeds the nominal grating width. The practical resolution scale is therefore a few nanometres; two-pixel sampling gives about . Exact resolvability also depends on slit width and image sampling. Taking the detector coordinate as about the original axis instead changes the single-pixel estimate only to .
Use a lock-in amplifier for phase-sensitive detection: chop or otherwise modulate the source before the entrance slit, retaining a synchronous reference. At each grating setting amplify the photodiode output, multiply it by a reference and low-pass filter. For a signal and reference , the low-pass output is ; quadrature demodulation also recovers . Choose the modulation frequency above slow drift while within the source/detector bandwidth and away from strong electrical interference. Average for many cycles before changing the grating setting.
Chopped-source spectral detection
. Original functional diagram separates modulation of the wanted source from unmodulated detector dark current and stray light. A shared reference drives demodulation; low-pass averaging sets the detected bandwidth. Details.This rejects steady backgrounds and reduces low-frequency noise through narrow-band detection. It does not remove random dark-current/stray-light shot noise within that bandwidth, nor a background modulated coherently with the source. The chopping geometry must therefore distinguish wanted light from stray paths.[ref]
About Lock-In Amplifiers by Stanford Research Systems. physical pp. 1–2: phase-sensitive multiplication, low-pass filtering, bandwidth and quadrature outputs
Readout overhead in Raman exposure allocation is the detector time that consumes the acquisition budget without collecting useful probe/reference photons. For pump-on/off exposure pairs, let each frame require a fixed closed-shutter readout duration . A wall-clock budget leaves total live timeUnder the stationary-rate, independent shot noise model of exposure-time allocation for a Raman gain ratio, its minimum approximate relative variance at fixed isReadout changes the available live time, but not this optimum ratio when the overhead is fixed and independent of the on/off allocation. The live-time formula itself ceases to describe all constraints when exposures hit saturation limits or the number of pairs is variable.
The 2003 primary stimulated-Raman experiment used 97 ms exposures and 10 ms detector readout with the exposure shutter closed. The pump shutter switched state during readout, giving successive on/off measurements.[ref]
Femtosecond Broadband Stimulated Raman: A New Approach for High-Performance Vibrational Spectroscopy by David W. McCamant and others. Data Collection, exposure/readout and S1/S2 shutter sequence preceding equation 4
These reported settings give an idealized two-frame cycle of , containing live time. The paper describes the practical full cycle as approximately 220 ms, so the two-duration sum need not include every system delay.For an original comparison at fixed wall time, the 214 ms idealization has live fraction . Relative to a hypothetical zero-overhead detector at the same rates and on/off allocation, the shot-noise variance is multiplied by , and its standard deviation by about . Using 10 ms rather than 97 ms exposures with the same 10 ms readout would give a live fraction and a variance penalty of two.
Longer frames reduce the fractional overhead but cannot be extended without limit. A maximum-exposure constraint in paired Raman acquisition can arise from saturation, while drift rejection can require frequent on/off alternation. Thus minimizing readout count alone is not a complete acquisition design; the applicable frame limits and switching cadence belong in the optimization.
Scaled subtraction of two spatially offset Raman spectra suppresses a common surface contribution by matching its amplitude between two measurements. The spatially offset Raman spectroscopy experiment establishes that collection offset can change surface and buried-layer proportions; numerical separation then needs a model of those contributions.[ref]
Subsurface Probing in Diffusely Scattering Media Using Spatially Offset Raman Spectroscopy by P. Matousek and others. Abstract, offset-dependent layer contributions and two-powder feasibility experiment
The following two-component subtraction is an original simplified case, not a claim that it reproduces the paper's full analysis.Let fixed Raman spectra and describe the surface and buried material. Writewith . ThenIf the two mixing proportions are identical, so , this cancels the buried component too. Offset diversity must supply different mixtures, not merely a weaker copy of the same spectrum.
For an original example, take and . The correct scale gives . Using instead gives : an incorrectly subtracted surface band can produce a negative residual even when both true spectra are nonnegative. A surface-specific reference band can estimate the scale only if the assumed common shape and response are adequate.
Noise remaining after scaled Raman subtraction is distinct from the cancelled mean signal. At a surface-only channel, suppose two independent acquisitions have Poisson photoelectron counts with means and . For fixed , the expected residual is zero, butgiving a standard deviation of about in the scaled count units. Subtraction has not erased shot noise. Correlated acquisitions and uncertainty in add further terms. Varying shape, wavelength-dependent attenuation or an unmatched fluorescence background can invalidate this simple linear separation.
Siegert relation 2026-10-18
For one selected polarization of waves, write the detected complex fields as and their light intensities as , absorbing a common conversion constant. With stationary ensemble averages and nonzero , defineHere second-order optical coherence concerns distinct detector channels, with the corresponding normal ordering in the quantum formulation. Independent detection has . Subtracting the means gives the normalized covarianceThus multiplying raw photocurrents contains a large mean-product contribution; multiplying their fluctuations isolates the small excess. Independent detector shot noise does not supply a mean cross-channel excess, although it increases measurement uncertainty.
The displayed Siegert relation requires a zero-mean, jointly circular complex Gaussian random field, the usual chaotic thermal light model. Circular means invariance under a common arbitrary complex phase rotation; in particular . Apply the Gaussian moment pairing theorem to the real and imaginary parts:The remaining pairing vanishes by circularity. Division proves the Siegert relation. Gaussianity is an assumption about fourth moments, not a consequence of merely measuring first-order optical coherence; a coherent state or photon antibunching cannot be interpreted by this thermal formula.
For equal-intensity beams combined in a common optical mode with matched wave polarizations, interferometric visibility is . Consequently ideal thermal stellar intensity interferometry measures , while the full includes the independent-count reference one. Unpolarized thermal light with two independent equally populated wave polarizations has half this excess: adding their covariances doubles the numerator while multiplying total means quadruples the denominator. Finite detector response further suppresses the peak and must be calibrated.[ref]
Spatial intensity interferometry on three bright stars by William Guerin and others. Guerin and others, Spatial intensity interferometry on three bright stars, arXiv:1805.06653v2 (13 August 2018), §§2.1–2.3: normalized correlation, thermal contrast and temporal-response calibration
Tsui-Störmer-Gossard fractional Hall experiment Created 2026-10-18 Updated 2026-10-20
Daniel Tsui, Horst Störmer and Arthur Gossard reported the effect in 1982. They grew gallium arsenide–aluminium gallium arsenide layers by molecular beam epitaxy, separating the two-dimensional electron gas from its semiconductor doping. They cut Hall bars and made indium contacts. Low-field measurements established number density and charge carrier mobility. A perpendicular magnetic field sweep measured transverse and longitudinal sheet resistivities at several temperatures. Cooling sharpened the plateau near and the longitudinal minimum at filling factor ; integer plateaus provided an internal comparison. The longitudinal minimum remained finite at the lowest temperature: zero-temperature vanishing was unresolved. This established anomalous transport, without directly measuring excitation electric charge.[ref]
Two-Dimensional Magnetotransport in the Extreme Quantum Limit by Daniel Chee Tsui and others. pp. 1559–1561, sample preparation, Figs. 1–2 and finite longitudinal minimum
The two readouts test different statements. A single intersection with would also occur on the smooth classical relation at . A quantum Hall plateau instead persists over a magnetic field interval. Comparing transverse and longitudinal signals helps distinguish that plateau from a contact-placement artefact; the quantum Hall conductivity tensor inversion quantifies the contamination when longitudinal sheet resistivity is nonzero.
Later, 1997 shot noise measurements associated with quantum tunnelling at filling factor tested the excitation electric charge separately, finding . That is a different observable from a Hall plateau.[ref]
Observation of the e⁄3 Fractionally Charged Laughlin Quasiparticle by L. Saminadayar and others. Publisher abstract: tunnelling noise and inferred quasiparticle charge
Walter Schottky Created 2026-10-18 Updated 2026-11-05
Walter Schottky explained a fundamental source of electrical noise: even a steady mean electric current can fluctuate because charge arrives in discrete units. His 1918 paper studies intrinsic limits to detecting weak signals with amplifying tubes, distinguishing charge discreteness from thermal motion. For independent charge-transfer events, the modern shot noise relation is for the one-sided current-noise power spectral density. Its dependence on the mean current makes the noise a probe of charge-transfer statistics, rather than merely a defect of an amplifier.[ref]
Über spontane Stromschwankungen in verschiedenen Elektrizitätsleitern by Walter Schottky. Annalen der Physik 57, 541–567 (1918), introduction and charge-discreteness contribution
A physicist who held a theoretical-physics professorship at Rostock from 1923 to 1927.[ref]
Walter Schottky by Stiftung Werner-von-Siemens-Ring. Werdegang: professor of theoretical physics at Rostock, 1923–1927; subsequent Siemens research
Portrait of Walter Schottky
. Source. Y. Jin Created 2026-10-18 Updated 2026-11-05
Coauthored the fractional quantum Hall effect experiment in a gallium arsenide electron system, using a quantum point contact to control the backscattered current and its shot noise. [ref]


