Roll-off

Roll-off is the steepness of a transfer function with frequency, particularly in electrical network analysis, and most especially in connection with filter circuits in the transition between a passband and a stopband. It is most typically applied to the insertion loss of the network, but can, in principle, be applied to any relevant function of frequency, and any technology, not just electronics. It is usual to measure roll-off as a function of logarithmic frequency; consequently, the units of roll-off are either decibels per decade (dB/decade), where a decade is a tenfold increase in frequency, or decibels per octave (dB/8ve), where an octave is a twofold increase in frequency.