Q factor

Page issues

The bandwidth of a damped

oscillator is shown on a graph of energy versus
frequency. The Q factor of the damped oscillator,

or filter, is . The higher the Q, the narrower

and sharper the peak is.

In physics and engineering the quality
factor or Q factor is a dimensionless
parameter that describes how
underdamped an oscillator or
resonator is,[1] and characterizes a
resonator's bandwidth relative to its
center frequency.[2] Higher Q
indicates a lower rate of energy loss
relative to the stored energy of the
resonator; the oscillations die out
more slowly. A pendulum suspended
from a high-quality bearing,
oscillating in air, has a high Q, while a
pendulum immersed in oil has a low
one. Resonators with high quality
factors have low damping, so that
they ring or vibrate longer.

Explanation
Q factor is a parameter that describes
the resonance behavior of an
underdamped harmonic oscillator
(resonator). Sinusoidally driven
resonators having higher Q factors
resonate with greater amplitudes (at
the resonant frequency) but have a
smaller range of frequencies around
that frequency for which they
resonate; the range of frequencies for
which the oscillator resonates is
called the bandwidth. Thus, a high-Q
tuned circuit in a radio receiver would
be more difficult to tune, but would
have more selectivity; it would do a
better job of filtering out signals from
other stations that lie nearby on the
spectrum. High-Q oscillators oscillate
with a smaller range of frequencies
and are more stable. (See oscillator
phase noise.)

The quality factor of oscillators varies

substantially from system to system,
depending on their construction.
Systems for which damping is
important (such as dampers keeping
a door from slamming shut) have Q
near 12. Clocks, lasers, and other
resonating systems that need either
strong resonance or high frequency
stability have high quality factors.
Tuning forks have quality factors
around 1000. The quality factor of
atomic clocks, superconducting RF
cavities used in accelerators, and
some high-Q lasers can reach as high
as 1011[3] and higher.[4]

There are many alternative quantities

used by physicists and engineers to
describe how damped an oscillator is.
Important examples include: the
damping ratio, relative bandwidth,
linewidth and bandwidth measured in
octaves.

The concept of Q originated with K. S.

Johnson of Western Electric
Company's Engineering Department
while evaluating the quality of coils
(inductors). His choice of the symbol
Q was only because, at the time, all
other letters of the alphabet were
taken. The term was not intended as
an abbreviation for "quality" or
"quality factor", although these terms
have grown to be associated with
it.[5][6][7]
Definition
In the context of resonators, there are
two common definitions for Q, which
aren't necessarily equivalent. They
become approximately equivalent as
Q becomes larger, meaning the
resonator becomes less damped. One
of these definitions is the frequency-
to-bandwidth ratio of the resonator:

where fr is the resonant frequency, f

is the resonance width or full width at
half maximum (FWHM) i.e. the
bandwidth over which the power of
vibration is greater than half the
power at the resonant frequency,
r = 2fr is the angular resonant
frequency, and is the angular half-
power bandwidth.

The other common equivalent

definition for Q is the ratio of the
energy stored in the oscillating
resonator to the energy dissipated per
cycle by damping processes[8]:

The factor 2 makes Q expressible in

simpler terms, involving only the
coefficients of the second-order
differential equation describing most
resonant systems, electrical or
mechanical. In electrical systems, the
stored energy is the sum of energies
stored in lossless inductors and
capacitors; the lost energy is the sum
of the energies dissipated in resistors
per cycle. In mechanical systems, the
stored energy is the maximum
possible stored energy, or the total
energy, i.e. the sum of the potential
and kinetic energies at some point in
time; the lost energy is the work done
by an external conservative force, per
cycle, to maintain amplitude.

More generally and in the context of

reactive component specification
(especially inductors), the frequency-
dependent definition of Q is used:[8][9]

where is the angular frequency at

which the stored energy and power
loss are measured. This definition is
consistent with its usage in
describing circuits with a single
reactive element (capacitor or
inductor), where it can be shown to be
equal to the ratio of reactive power to
real power. (See Individual reactive
components.)

Q factor and damping

The Q factor determines the
qualitative behavior of simple
damped oscillators. (For
mathematical details about these
systems and their behavior see
harmonic oscillator and linear time
invariant (LTI) system.)

A system with low quality factor

(Q < 12) is said to be overdamped.
Such a system doesn't oscillate at all,
but when displaced from its
equilibrium steady-state output it
returns to it by exponential decay,
approaching the steady state value
asymptotically. It has an impulse
response that is the sum of two
decaying exponential functions with
different rates of decay. As the quality
factor decreases the slower decay
mode becomes stronger relative to
the faster mode and dominates the
system's response resulting in a
slower system. A second-order low-
pass filter with a very low quality
factor has a nearly first-order step
response; the system's output
responds to a step input by slowly
rising toward an asymptote.
A system with high quality factor
(Q > 12) is said to be underdamped.
Underdamped systems combine
oscillation at a specific frequency
with a decay of the amplitude of the
signal. Underdamped systems with a
low quality factor (a little above Q
= 12) may oscillate only once or a
few times before dying out. As the
quality factor increases, the relative
amount of damping decreases. A
high-quality bell rings with a single
pure tone for a very long time after
being struck. A purely oscillatory
system, such as a bell that rings
forever, has an infinite quality factor.
More generally, the output of a
second-order low-pass filter with a
very high quality factor responds to a
step input by quickly rising above,
oscillating around, and eventually
converging to a steady-state value.
A system with an intermediate
quality factor (Q = 12) is said to be
critically damped. Like an
overdamped system, the output does
not oscillate, and does not overshoot
its steady-state output (i.e., it
approaches a steady-state
asymptote). Like an underdamped
response, the output of such a
system responds quickly to a unit
step input. Critical damping results in
the fastest response (approach to the
final value) possible without
overshoot. Real system
specifications usually allow some
overshoot for a faster initial response
or require a slower initial response to
provide a safety margin against
overshoot.

In negative feedback systems, the

dominant closed-loop response is
often well-modeled by a second-order
system. The phase margin of the
open-loop system sets the quality
factor Q of the closed-loop system; as
the phase margin decreases, the
approximate second-order closed-
loop system is made more oscillatory
(i.e., has a higher quality factor).

Quality factors of common

systems

A unity gain SallenKey filter

topology with equivalent capacitors
and equivalent resistors is critically
damped (i.e., Q = 12).
A second-order Butterworth filter
(i.e., continuous-time filter with the
flattest passband frequency
response) has an underdamped
Q = 12 .[10]
A Bessel filter (i.e., continuous-time
filter with flattest group delay) has an
underdamped Q = 13 .

Physical interpretation
Physically speaking, Q is 2 times the
ratio of the total energy stored divided
by the energy lost in a single cycle or
equivalently the ratio of the stored
energy to the energy dissipated over
one radian of the oscillation.[11]

It is a dimensionless parameter that

compares the exponential time
constant for decay of an oscillating
physical system's amplitude to its
oscillation period. Equivalently, it
compares the frequency at which a
system oscillates to the rate at which
it dissipates its energy.

Equivalently (for large values of Q),

the Q factor is approximately the
number of oscillations required for a
freely oscillating system's energy to
fall off to e2, or about 1535 or 0.2%,
of its original energy.[12] This means
the amplitude falls off to
approximately e or 4% of its original
amplitude.[13]

The width (bandwidth) of the

resonance is given by

where f0 is the resonant frequency,

and f, the bandwidth, is the width of
the range of frequencies for which the
energy is at least half its peak value.

The resonant frequency is often

expressed in natural units (radians
per second), rather than using the f0
in hertz, as
The factors Q, damping ratio ,
attenuation rate , and exponential
time constant are related such
that:[14]

and the damping ratio can be

expressed as:

The envelope of oscillation decays

t
proportional to et or
e , where
and can be expressed as:
and

The energy of oscillation, or the

power dissipation, decays twice as
fast, that is, as the square of the
2t
amplitude, as e2t or
e .

For a two-pole lowpass filter, the

transfer function of the filter is[14]
For this system, when Q > 12 (i.e.,
when the system is underdamped), it
has two complex conjugate poles that
each have a real part of . That is,
the attenuation parameter
represents the rate of exponential
decay of the oscillations (that is, of
the output after an impulse) into the
system. A higher quality factor
implies a lower attenuation rate, and
so high-Q systems oscillate for many
cycles. For example, high-quality bells
have an approximately pure
sinusoidal tone for a long time after
being struck by a hammer.

Filter type (2nd order) Transfer function[15]

Lowpass

Bandpass

Notch (Bandstop)

Highpass

Electrical systems
A graph of a filter's gain magnitude, illustrating
the concept of 3 dB at a voltage gain of 0.707 or
half-power bandwidth. The frequency axis of this
symbolic diagram can be linear or logarithmically
scaled.

For an electrically resonant system,

the Q factor represents the effect of
electrical resistance and, for
electromechanical resonators such
as quartz crystals, mechanical
friction.

Relationship between Q
and bandwidth
The 2-sided bandwidth relative to a
resonant frequency of F0 Hz is F0/Q.

For example, an antenna tuned to

have a Q value of 10 and a centre
frequency of 100 kHz would have a
3 dB bandwidth of 10 kHz.

In audio, bandwidth is often

expressed in terms of octaves. Then
the relationship between Q and
bandwidth is

where BW is the bandwidth in

octaves.

RLC circuits

In an ideal series RLC circuit, and in a

tuned radio frequency receiver (TRF)
the Q factor is:

where R, L and C are the resistance,

inductance and capacitance of the
tuned circuit, respectively. The larger
the series resistance, the lower the
circuit Q.

For a parallel RLC circuit, the Q factor

is the inverse of the series case:[16]

[17]

Consider a circuit where R, L and C

are all in parallel. The lower the
parallel resistance, the more effect it
will have in damping the circuit and
thus the lower the Q. This is useful in
filter design to determine the
bandwidth.

In a parallel LC circuit where the main

loss is the resistance of the inductor,
R, in series with the inductance, L, Q is
as in the series circuit. This is a
common circumstance for
resonators, where limiting the
resistance of the inductor to improve
Q and narrow the bandwidth is the
desired result.

Individual reactive
components

The Q of an individual reactive

component depends on the frequency
at which it is evaluated, which is
typically the resonant frequency of
the circuit that it is used in. The Q of
an inductor with a series loss
resistance is the Q of a resonant
circuit using that inductor (including
its series loss) and a perfect
capacitor.[18]

where:

0 is the resonance frequency in

radians per second,
L is the inductance,
XL is the inductive reactance, and
RL is the series resistance of the
inductor.

The Q of a capacitor with a series loss

resistance is the same as the Q of a
resonant circuit using that capacitor
with a perfect inductor:[18]

where:

0 is the resonance frequency in

radians per second,
C is the capacitance,
XC is the capacitive reactance, and
RC is the series resistance of the
capacitor.

In general, the Q of a resonator

involving a series combination of a
capacitor and an inductor can be
determined from the Q values of the
components, whether their losses
come from series resistance or
otherwise:[18]

Mechanical systems
For a single damped mass-spring
system, the Q factor represents the
effect of simplified viscous damping
or drag, where the damping force or
drag force is proportional to velocity.
The formula for the Q factor is:
where M is the mass, k is the spring
constant, and D is the damping
coefficient, defined by the equation
Fdamping = Dv, where v is the
velocity.[19]

Acoustical systems
The Q of a musical instrument is
critical; an excessively high Q in a
sound box will not amplify the
multiple frequencies an instrument
produces evenly. For this reason,
string instruments often have curvy
soundboxes with complex shapes, so
that they will amplify a range of
frequencies fairly evenly.

The Q of a brass instrument or wind

instrument needs to be high enough
to pick one frequency out of the
broader-spectrum buzzing of the lips
or reed. A vuvuzela is made of flexible
plastic, and therefore has a very low Q
for a brass instrument, giving it a
muddy, breathy tone. Instruments
made of stiffer plastic, brass, or wood
are higher-Q. An excessively high Q
can make it harder to hit a note. Q in
an instrument may vary across
frequencies, but this may not be
desirable.

Helmholtz resonators have a very

high Q, as they are designed for
picking out a single frequency.

Optical systems
In optics, the Q factor of a resonant
cavity is given by

where fo is the resonant frequency, E

is the stored energy in the cavity, and
dE
P = dt is the power dissipated. The
optical Q is equal to the ratio of the
resonant frequency to the bandwidth
of the cavity resonance. The average
lifetime of a resonant photon in the
cavity is proportional to the cavity's Q.
If the Q factor of a laser's cavity is
abruptly changed from a low value to
a high one, the laser will emit a pulse
of light that is much more intense
than the laser's normal continuous
output. This technique is known as Q-
switching.

See also
Acoustic resonance
 Attenuation
Phase margin
Q meter
Dissipation factor

References
1. Harlow, James H. (2004). Electric
power transformer engineering . CRC
Press. pp. 2216. ISBN 978-0-8493-
1704-0.
2. Tooley, Michael H. (2006). Electronic
circuits: fundamentals and
applications . Newnes. pp. 7778.
ISBN 978-0-7506-6923-8.
3. Encyclopedia of Laser Physics and
Technology: Q factor
Technology: Q factor
4. Time and Frequency from A to Z: Q to
Ra
5.
http://www.collinsaudio.com/Prosound
_Workshop/The_story_of_Q.pdf
6. B. Jeffreys, Q.Jl R. astr. Soc. (1985)
26, 5152
7. Paschotta, Rdiger (2008).
Encyclopedia of Laser Physics and
Technology, Vol. 1: A-M . Wiley-VCH.
p. 580. ISBN 3527408282.
8. Slyusar V. I. 60 Years of Electrically
Small Antennas Theory.//roceedings
of the 6-th International Conference on
Antenna Theory and Techniques, 17-21
September, 2007, Sevastopol, Ukraine. -
Pp. 116 - 118. [1]
9. James W. Nilsson (1989). Electric
Circuits. ISBN 0-201-17288-7.
10.
http://opencourseware.kfupm.edu.sa/c
olleges/ces/ee/ee303/files%5C5-
Projects_Sample_Project3.pdf
11. Jackson, R. (2004). Novel Sensors
and Sensing. Bristol: Institute of
Physics Pub. p. 28. ISBN 0-7503-0989-
X.
12. Benjamin Crowell (2006). "Light and
Matter" ., Ch. 18
13. Anant., Agarwal, (2005).
Foundations of analog & digital
Foundations of analog & digital
electronic circuits . Lang, Jeffrey
(Jeffrey H.). Amsterdam: Elsevier.
p. 647. ISBN 9781558607354.
OCLC 60245509 .
14. Siebert, William McC. Circuits,
Signals, and Systems. MIT Press.
15. Chapter 8 Analog Filters Analog
Devices
16. Series and Parallel Resonance
17. Frequency Response: Resonance,
Bandwidth, Q Factor
18. Di Paolo, Franco (2000). Networks
and Devices Using Planar Transmission
Lines . CRC Press. pp. 490491.
ISBN 9780849318351.
ISBN 9780849318351.
19. Methods of Experimental Physics
Lecture 5: Fourier Transforms and
Differential Equations

Further reading
Agarwal, Anant; Lang, Jeffrey
(2005). Foundations of Analog and
Digital Electronic Circuits . Morgan
Kaufmann. ISBN 1-55860-735-8.

External links
Wikimedia Commons has media
related to Quality factor.

Calculating the cut-off frequencies

when center frequency and Q factor is
given
Explanation of Q factor in radio
tuning circuits

Retrieved from
"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
title=Q_factor&oldid=803869594"

Last edited 14 days ago by Che

Content is available under CC BY-SA 3.0

unless otherwise noted.