We're ready now to analyze the first

simple Op Amp circuit, which is called a

voltage follower, or simply a buffer
amplifier.
Now, this is about as simple as it gets
with the op amp.
The ye, the non-inverting and the
inverting terminals shown here, the
outputs here.
What you do is you connect the output to
the inverting input of the op amp.
And, that's it.
That's the whole op amp circuit.
And so, what we want to do is analyze
this entire circuit.
If I put a voltage source with some
internal source impedance on the input
side and then put a load resistor on the
output side.
I'd like to compute the gain of this
circuit and see what it, what it does.
Now, we're going to use the idealized op
amp model to analyze this circuit.
So that really simplifies things a great
deal.
Now, [COUGH], the first thing is to
notice that we have intentionally
connected the output to the inverting
input.
So that means that VN here, has to equal
V0.
So, we're forcing that by connecting a
wire there.
Now, iP is zero.
This is the ideal op amp assumption that
there's no current flowing into either of
the inputs.
So, if iP is zero, that means there's no
current through this resistor.
So, there's no voltage drop across that
resistor.
So the voltage on this side and that side
are exactly the same.
So, if that's the case, then VP is just
equal to VS.
So, using Kirchhoff's law, we go from 0
to VS, then there's no voltage drop
across RS.
And then here we are at VP, so VP equals
VS.
Now, the ideal op amp model also tells us
that VP equals VN.
So, there's no voltage difference between
[INAUDIBLE], the non-inverting and
inverting inputs.
Therefore, V out has to equal, Vs.
So, that's all there is to it.
So, the output of this is equal to the
voltage of that source.
And we say that the output is simply

following the input voltage.

Now, that seems like, big deal, who cares
about an amplifier that does nothing.
I could have just measured the voltage
here and and that would be it.
But what this does is it isolates the
input from the output side.
There's no current being drawn from this
source here, so there's no current here.
So, we have we don't have any voltage
drop across the source resistor, because
there's no current.
And so, this voltage is mirrored on the
output of the amp-, amplifier.
So it's, what we say is we've buffered
this input from the output.
And the, the utility of this kind of
circuit is that we're
If this happened to be a very high
impedance internal source like a guitar
pickup for example, this could be 10
kilo-ohms.
we can measure the voltage here with the
up-end circuit without having to worry
about there being any internal voltage
drop through that large source impedance.
And so we can have source that provides
very small, actually zero current, and
then the output of this the op amp is
able to drive a substantial amount of
current through a load resistor.
And so, you have in this idealized model,
there's, there's no current here and
there's a finite current here.
So, there's actually infinite gain
infinite power gain.
But in practice, it's obviously not that.
But the idea is that we buffer the input
from the output, and the up amp is able
to drive much more current than would
have been available from, the original
source.