Electrical – Source of DC offset in circuit

constant-currentdc-offset

I am trying to inject a 1 mA current pulse (10% duty cycle) at a frequency of 10 Hz, across a ball of gel(20 cm in diameter) through rubber electrode pads, using a constant current source (built in house at another university) that is triggered every 100 ms (with a TTL) to generate the desired stimulation waveform. I am monitoring the amount of current I am injecting into the circuit through a series resistance by monitoring the voltage drop across the resistor using an oscilloscope (Va-Vb)method). Please see the below circuit.Circuit Schematic describing the connections.

On starting the stimulation, I observe there is a DC offset to my pulsed stimulation waveform which I can control using a parameter on the current source labeled "Offset control". I can adjust this control to ensure that the baseline of the stimulation waveform coincides with the "zero marker" on my oscilloscope.

I was wondering if someone can explain what might be causing this DC offset and how we can correct for this offset? I do not have access to the specifics of the stimulator and if I want to implement some sort of my own correction (instead of using the "offset control" function), is there a way to do it?

Also, does this DC offset have anything to do with the capacitive effect caused by the ball of gel (since its not entirely resistive)?
Any detailed explanation will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Best Answer

schematic

simulate this circuit – Schematic created using CircuitLab

_Figure 1a. A uni-polar squarewave will have an average DC value of 50% of peak. Figure 1(b). A bi-polar squarewave signal will have a DC value of 0 V.

It sounds as though you are using a uni-polar signal. This will have a DC offset of half of peak voltage.

To fix this you need to redesign the current source to alternate the current direction as shown in Figure 1b.