Coupling (electronics)
In electronics, electric power and telecommunication, coupling is the transfer of electrical energy from one circuit to another, or between parts of a circuit. Coupling can be deliberate as part of the function of the circuit, or it may be undesirable, for instance due to coupling to stray fields. For example, energy is transferred from a power source to an electrical load by means of conductive coupling, which may be either resistive or direct coupling. An AC potential may be transferred from one circuit segment to another having a DC potential by use of a capacitor. Electrical energy may be transferred from one circuit segment to another segment with different impedance by use of a transformer; this is known as impedance matching. These are examples of electrostatic and electrodynamic inductive coupling.
Types
Electrical conduction:
- Direct coupling, also called conductive coupling[1] and galvanic coupling
- Resistive conduction
- Atmospheric plasma channel coupling
Electromagnetic induction:
- Electrodynamic induction — commonly called inductive coupling, also magnetic coupling[1]
- Capacitive coupling
- Evanescent wave coupling
Electromagnetic radiation:
- Radio waves — Wireless telecommunications.
- Electromagnetic interference (EMI) — Sometimes called radio frequency interference (RFI), is unwanted coupling. Electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) requires techniques to avoid such unwanted coupling, such as electromagnetic shielding.
- Microwave power transmission
Other kinds of energy coupling:
See also
- Antenna noise temperature
- Coupling loss
- Aperture-to-medium coupling loss
- Coupling coefficient of resonators
- Directional coupler
- Equilibrium length
- Fiber-optic coupling
- Loading coil
- Shield
- List of electronics topics
- AC Coupling
- Impedance matching
- Impedance bridging
- Decoupling
- Crosstalk
- Wireless power transfer
References
- Alexander, Charles K.; O. Sadiku, Matthew N. (2013). Fundamentals of Electric Circuits (5th ed.). McGraw-Hills. p. 556. ISBN 978-0-07-338057-5.
The circuits we have considered so far may be regarded as conductively coupled, because one loop affects the neighboring loop through current conduction. When two loops with or without contacts between them affect each other through the magnetic field generated by one of them, they are said to be magnetically coupled.