Apr 24,2023
What is a peaking coil?
A peaking coil is a type of inductor used in electronic circuits to selectively enhance or amplify the resonance of a particular frequency. It is usually composed of a coil of wire wound around a core made of a magnetic material, such as ferrite or iron powder.
The peaking coil is placed in parallel with a capacitor in a resonant circuit, forming a parallel LC (inductor-capacitor) circuit. When an AC signal is applied to the circuit, the capacitor and the inductor store and release energy in a cyclic manner, resulting in a resonant frequency determined by the values of the capacitor and the inductor.
The peaking coil is designed to have a high Q-factor, which is a measure of the sharpness of the resonance. A high Q-factor means that the circuit can select a very narrow band of frequencies centered around the resonant frequency, while rejecting other frequencies outside that band. This makes the peaking coil useful for applications such as radio frequency (RF) amplifiers, filters, and antennas.
