Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
IAN RIPPY
Release notes
V5, some lab designs based on 2015 lab manual authored by Derrick Kaseman, others by Dr. Rajesh Chopdekar
Textbooks (optional): 1. J.R.Taylor, An Introduction to Error Analysis, 2nd edition, University Science Books,
1996. ISBN 093570275X (paperback)
2. S.O. Kasap, Principles of Electronic Materials and Devices, 3rd Edition,
McGraw-Hill, 2000. ISBN: 0-07-295791-3 (hardcover), 0-07-124458-1 (paperback)
3. R.E. Hummel, Electronic Properties of Materials, 3rd/4th Edition, Springer,
2001/2011, ISBN: 0-3876-95144/1-4419-8163-9 (4th edition available electronically
(free) or in softcover ($24.95) from Springer when using a UC Davis IP address)
4. J.D. Livingston, Electronic Properties of Engineering Materials, 1st Edition, Wiley
1998, ISBN: 978-0471316275
Course Policies:
1. Prompt attendance for all laboratory sessions is mandatory, as safety information will be reviewed per
experiment. If you are not present for the safety briefing, you will receive a zero for the lab.
2. Follow the Class Schedule below – you do not need to attend lab or discussion section if there is no lab or
discussion held that day.
3. You must agree to abide by the laboratory safety rules (see handout).
4. Lab reports and memos are due one week from the day of the experiment by 6PM unless otherwise specified.
All assignments should be submitted through Canvas. For example, if you are in the Friday section, your
reports and memos are due the next Friday at 6PM. Late reports are penalized 33% of the full grade per day.
5. Absence due to illness (doctor’s note required) or academic conflict such as a conference can be excused, but
discussion with the instructor is necessary before any missed lab section.
UC Davis MSE EMS 172L Fall 2018 Page | 3
6. Unless you are instructed otherwise, you may discuss results and analysis pertaining to laboratory reports with
other students in the class, but all submitted work must be your own. The UC Davis Code of Academic
Conduct will be strictly enforced in cases of academic dishonesty, etc. (see http://sja.ucdavis.edu/cac.html).
If you have any questions, speak with the instructor.
7. It is expected that students will abide by the UC Davis Principles of Community (see
http://occr.ucdavis.edu/poc/).
8. You are required to complete your Academic Participation Verification (see https://participate.ucdavis.edu/)
by the quarter add deadline. Failure to do so may results in a reduction of your financial aid.
Upon successful completion of this course, the students are expected to acquire or improve upon the ability to
apply knowledge of mathematics, science, and engineering; and the ability to apply advanced science (such as
chemistry and physics) and engineering principles to the electronic, magnetic and optical properties of materials.
Students are further expected to clearly and logically communicate the above application of science and
engineering principles in written form.
1 or more points will be deducted per error for lack of labels or captions, lack of error bars, errors in usage of
significant figures, etc. at the discretion of the grader. Simple mistakes in grammar or typos will not be strictly
penalized, but the report must be in complete sentences and have a logical flow from start to finish. Again, take
your time and do not try to write the report in one night!
Several example lab reports are available to review on canvas. These consist of reports written to different rubrics
and specifications than those this class will adhere to, and are supplied only as a general guide for the level of
quality that is expected in a lab report.
1 or more points will be deducted per error for lack of labels or captions, lack of error bars, errors in usage of
significant figures, etc. at the discretion of the grader. The memo must be written to a professional standard, and
points will be deducted at the discretion of the grader for failure to properly format any of the sections. Simple
mistakes in grammar or typos will not be strictly penalized, but the report must be in complete sentences and have
a logical flow from start to finish. Again, take your time and do not try to write the report in one night!
Several example engineering memos are available to review on canvas. These consist of memos written to
different rubrics and specifications than those this class will adhere to, and are supplied only as a general guide
for the level of quality that is expected in a lab memo.
As we perform experiments, we need to know how confident we are in the data that we take, and
what judgements we can make from that data. There will always be some uncertainty or ambiguity with
all measurements, and as an engineer you will need to know how your experimental uncertainty affects
your derived quantities of interest. Taylor’s textbook on error analysis (“An Introduction to Error
Analysis”) is a good reference, but this document will detail a few key points on propagation of error and
uncertainty in fit parameters.
Measurement uncertainty is usually dictated by the precision of the instrument used to perform
the measurement. We can say that for a stable digital reading that the error is within 1 unit of the least
significant digit. If the reading is fluctuating, then you can estimate the uncertainty from the magnitude
of the fluctuation. For a counting experiment, the uncertainty is usually reported as the square root of the
counts. An analog reading from a scale such as a ruler is usually precise to within one of the smallest
divisions on the scale. Unless otherwise stated, constants have precisely stated errors, and in some cases
we assume those constants are exact values.
For a counting experiment with sufficient counts (i.e. your measured value is an integer N of some
object, and it is conceivable you may have miscounted), we would quote the measurement best guess as
N and uncertainty as the square root of the number of counts √𝑁. Written more compactly, the best guess
and uncertainty for a counting experiment is:
𝑁 ± √𝑁
Propagation of uncertainties is very important so that you can keep track of how measurement
uncertainty affects values calculated from those measurements. The uncertainty of any measurements
contributing to a calculation are always cumulative. In a calculation, the uncertainty of a variable is shown
by preceding the variable with the Greek letters 𝛿 or ∆. For example, if you have three measurements x,
y, and z, then their respective uncertainties could be shown as 𝛿𝑥, 𝛿𝑦, and 𝛿𝑧. If you have a derived
quantity F(x,y,z) that depends on those measurements, then we can state the uncertainty in F as
𝛿𝐹(sometimes seen as ∆𝐹) by the following derivation
2 2 2
𝑑𝐹 𝑑𝐹 𝑑𝐹
𝛿𝐹 = √( 𝛿𝑥) + ( 𝛿𝑦) + ( 𝛿𝑧)
𝑑𝑥 𝑑𝑦 𝑑𝑧
This gives the statistically most relevant uncertainty for the calculated value F. For calculations with more
or less contributing measurements, the terms can be expanded or removed as needed. Performing this
derivation for every equation is tedious, and so for the most relevant mathematical examples derivations
have been provided.
For cases of only addition or subtraction of measurements, the derivation for the uncertainty would be
𝑐 =𝑥+𝑦−𝑧−𝑤
𝛿𝑐 = √𝛿𝑥 2 + 𝛿𝑦 2 + 𝛿𝑧 2 + 𝛿𝑤 2
For solely the multiplication or division of measured values, the derivation would be
𝑥∗𝑦∗𝑧
𝑐=
𝑤
𝛿𝑐 𝛿𝑥 2 𝛿𝑦 2 𝛿𝑧 2 𝛿𝑤 2
= √( ) + ( ) + ( ) + ( )
𝑐 𝑥 𝑦 𝑧 𝑤
In summary, for all measured and derived readings, the uncertainty should be reported. We
cannot compare to literature or theoretical values with any good judgement if we do not know how
certain we are of our measured or derived values.
Significant figures need to be kept track of. For any measurement quantity, your significant
figures should match the lowest precision of any of the measurement tools you have used, and the
uncertainty should be used to know when to truncate the value. Also, uncertainty is usually only
reported to one significant figure. For instance, after 5 measurements if you measure an average
distance of 101.031 mm on a set of calipers but your standard error for the measurement is 0.218 mm,
then you would report as your measurement 101.0 ±0.2 as the best estimate with uncertainty. The
same concept applies to derived quantities – while physical constants have well known (and usually very
small) uncertainty, for your derived quantities you must truncate any calculated values such that their
significant figures match the lowest number of significant figures from your starting quantities.