Illustrated Physics
physics, drawn
Concept

Harmonics — where it appears

Components of a periodic signal at whole-number multiples of its fundamental frequency. Odd harmonics keep a waveform's half-cycle symmetry and even harmonics break it, which decides whether its positive and negative peaks can differ.

Named by 2 essays across 2 fields — each of them below, with the objects they name alongside it.

The path the tip of the field traces. The tip of the total field over one cycle, for four arrangements of coils, with each coil's axis as a faint line and the field at one moment as an arrow. One coil: forward-turning part 0.50, backward-turning part 0.50; Two coils, 90° and a quarter cycle apart: forward-turning part 1.00, backward-turning part 0.00; Three balanced coils: forward-turning part 1.50, backward-turning part 0.00; Three coils, the third at 70 per cent current: forward-turning part 1.35, backward-turning part 0.15. One coil traces a line: equal forward and backward parts, a field that pulses and does not turn. Two coils at right angles a quarter cycle apart trace a circle of radius 1, three balanced coils a circle of 1.5, and a weakened third coil an ellipse, the sum of a large forward circle and a small backward one.

The field that turns with nothing turning

A coil fed with alternating current makes a magnetic field that grows, shrinks and reverses along the coil's axis and never leaves it. Put three such coils at 120° to one another and feed them currents a third of a cycle apart, and their fields add to one of constant strength that turns steadily round the centre — a rotating magnet made of nothing that moves. The trick is superposition read backwards: a field pulsing along a line is already two fields turning opposite ways, and the three coils are arranged so that one pair cancels and the other adds. Everything that goes wrong afterwards is a field turning the wrong way.

waves · Superposition The self-bias set by a phase alone. The dc self-bias against the phase between the fundamental and its second harmonic, each of amplitude A, for three chambers: symmetry parameter ε = 0.5, 1, 2, where ε = 1 is a chamber with equal sheaths on both sides. In the symmetric chamber the bias runs from −0.438 A at 0° through zero at 45° to 0.438 at 90°, and back — −43.8 V to 43.8 V at A = 100 V — staying within 0.011 A of a straight line between 0° and 90°. An asymmetric chamber adds a fixed offset of the kind unequal electrodes produce and leaves the phase control in place, so the geometry and the waveform add rather than compete.

The bias a waveform can choose

A plasma between two identical electrodes, driven by a sine wave, has no reason to prefer either side, and it does not: no direct voltage appears. Add the second harmonic and it does, although the chamber is still symmetric, no direct current flows and the power spectrum does not depend on the phase between the two. The phase alone sets a bias of up to 0.44 of each harmonic's amplitude, of either sign, and moves the energy of the ions from one electrode to the other while their number stays put.

astrophysics · Plasma oscillation

Named alongside it

The objects these essays reach for when they reach for this one.

Fourier seriesCapacitive dischargeCircular polarisationInduction motorIon energyPhasePlasmaRotating magnetic fieldRotating wave approximationSelf-biasSheathSuperposition

All concepts