nachgeschaltete

Nachgeschaltete is a German term used as an attributive participle derived from nachschalten, meaning to connect after or in series in a signal path. It describes an element that is positioned downstream of another element in a circuit or system, i.e., it is placed after a preceding block in the signal chain.

The term is common in technical and engineering contexts. In electronics and electrical engineering it is applied to components or circuits that receive, process, or react to a signal only after another stage has acted on it. Examples include a nachgeschalteter Verstärker (a downstream amplifier), eine nachgeschaltete Filterschaltung (a downstream filter circuit), or nachgeschaltete Messverstärker in measurement chains. In telecommunications, control engineering and audio engineering, the concept is used to denote blocks that follow earlier stages in series connections rather than in parallel.

Grammatically, nachgeschaltete is used in its attributive form before a noun and reflects gender and case, e.g., eine nachgeschaltete Schaltung, ein nachgeschalteter Verstärker, ein nachgeschaltetes Bauteil, mehrere nachgeschaltete Bauteile. The opposite concept is vorgeschaltet, meaning connected before or placed preceding another stage.

Relation to broader concepts: nachgeschaltet describes a cascade or serial arrangement in a signal path, often contrasted with parallel or pre-connected (vorgeschaltet) configurations. It is widely understood in German technical literature, schematics, and system descriptions.

See also: cascade, Kaskadierung, vorgelagert vs nachgelagert, nachgeschaltete Schaltung.