Electronic – Reason for small-valued feedback resistors in low noise Op Amp

feedbackoperational-amplifier

I am wondering why the feedback resistor values specified in the datasheet of the AD797 are so small. My understanding is that the low feedback resistances keep the noise small, but isn't it also not ideal to have large currents flowing through the feedback network? My understanding was that feedback resistors should be >1k.

Here is a link to the datasheet: https://www.analog.com/media/en/technical-documentation/data-sheets/ad797.pdf

And a picture of an example application:
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26.1 ohms seems like far too small a value for feedback resistors.

Best Answer

This op-amp boasts input noise of 0.9 nV/√Hz, which is roughly equal to the Johnson noise of a 50 Ω resistor. If you aren't putting resistors smaller than that around it, you're wasting some of this op-amp's performance, and probably should be buying something cheaper.

Another useful identity is 1 kΩ ≈ 4 nV/√Hz, there being many more op-amps with input noise around that level.