Network analyzer (electrical)
Overview
Two-port network
A two-port network is an electrical circuit or device with two pairs of terminals connected together internally by an electrical network...
of electrical network
Electrical network
An electrical network is an interconnection of electrical elements such as resistors, inductors, capacitors, transmission lines, voltage sources, current sources and switches. An electrical circuit is a special type of network, one that has a closed loop giving a return path for the current...
s. Today, network analyzers commonly measure s–parameters
Scattering parameters
Scattering parameters or S-parameters describe the electrical behavior of linear electrical networks when undergoing various steady state stimuli by electrical signals....
because reflection
Signal reflection
Signal reflection occurs when a signal is transmitted along a transmission medium, such as a copper cable or an optical fiber, some of the signal power may be reflected back to its origin rather than being carried all the way along the cable to the far end. This happens because imperfections in the...
and transmission
Transmission line
In communications and electronic engineering, a transmission line is a specialized cable designed to carry alternating current of radio frequency, that is, currents with a frequency high enough that its wave nature must be taken into account...
of electrical networks are easy to measure at high frequencies, but there are other network parameter sets such as y-parameters, z-parameters, and h-parameters. Network analyzers are often used to characterize two-port network
Two-port network
A two-port network is an electrical circuit or device with two pairs of terminals connected together internally by an electrical network...
s such as amplifiers and filters, but they can be used on networks with an arbitrary number of ports.
Network analyzers are used mostly at high frequencies
Frequency
Frequency is the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit time. It is also referred to as temporal frequency.The period is the duration of one cycle in a repeating event, so the period is the reciprocal of the frequency...
; operating frequencies can range from 9 kHz to 110 GHz.
