PN Junction Diodes by Yirga

UNIVERSITY OF GONDAR
INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
PN Junction Diodes
Prepared by Yirga M.
Contents
✓PN Junction.
✓Depletion Region.
✓Forward Bias.
✓Reverse Bias.
✓Diode Characteristic Curves.
✓Diode Application.
.
PN Junction
 P Type Material -Group IV semiconductor material (Si, Ge) doped with group Ill
elements (B, In, Ga, etc.) -trivalent impurity.
 N Type Material - Group IV semiconductor material (Si, Ge) doped with group V
elements (P, As, Sb, Bi etc.) — pentavalent impurity.
 P Type Material and N Type Material joined together at one end.
 Doped regions meet together to form a PN Junction
 Permit unidirectional current flow
 Useful in the construction of diodes
Cont…
Depletion Region
• Free electrons on the n side migrate/ diffuse across the junction to the p side
• On the p side, free electrons are the minority current carriers.
• Free electrons combine with holes shortly after crossing over to the p side.
• A free electron leaves the n side and falls into a hole on the p side, creates two ions
• A positive ion on the n side and a negative ion on the p side.
• Ions are immobile, electric field created.
• As the process of diffusion continues, a barrier potential is created, diffusion of
electrons from the n side to the p side stops.
• Electrons diffusing from the n side sense a large negative potential on the p side that
repels them back to the n side.
• Holes from the p side repelled back to the p side by the positive potential on the n side.
Cont…
• Area where the positive and negative ions are located called the depletion region
or space charge region .
• Word depletion used because the area has been depleted of all charge carriers.
• Barrier potential approximately 0.7 V for Si and 0.3 V for Ge.
• Barrier potential stops diffusion of current carriers.
Biasing a PN Junction
The voltage applied to a semiconductor diode is referred to as bias voltage
There are two type of bias voltage
Forward Bias and Reverse Bias
Forward bias
 Forward Biasing allows current to flow easily by reducing the width of potential
barrier
 + terminal of battery is connected with P-type and – terminal of battery is
connected with n-type
 Maximum current flow through the diode during FB.
 Depletion region is very small
Reverse Bias
 Reverse biasing impedes current flow, only leakage current flows.
 + terminal of battery is connected with n-type and – terminal of battery is
connected with p-type
 Extremely small current flow through the diode during RB.
 Depletion region is large in RB
 Zener and Avalanche breakdown occur in it
Leakage Current
 Reverse-biased diode conducts a small amount of current, called leakage current
 Leakage current mainly due to minority current carriers in both sides of the
junction.
 Minority current carriers are holes in the n side and free electrons in the p side.
 Increase in the temperature of the diode increases the leakage current in the diode
 Minority current carriers move in opposite direction to the direction provided
with forward bias
 Also called reverse saturation current
Diode characteristics curve
 The simplest way to visualize diode operation is to think of it as a switch.
 When FB, the diode ideally acts as a closed (ON) switch.
 When RB, the diode ideally acts as a open (OFF) switch
Actual Diode Characteristics
 The actual diode characteristics looks like
Diode Application
 Rectifiers
 Clippers
 Clampers
 Voltage Regulators
Rectifiers
 Rectifiers is device which converts A.C to D.C and this process is called
rectification.
 Half wave rectifier
 Is simplest type of rectifier, which is made with just one diode.
 When the voltage of a.c. current is positive, the diode becomes forward biased
and current flow through it.
 When the voltage is negative, the diode is reverse biased and the current stops.
 The process of removing one-half the input signal to establish a dc level is
called half-wave rectification.


Cont…
 Full wave rectifier
 This rectifier is essentially made of two half-wave rectifiers, and can be made with two
diodes
 When the voltage of the ac is positive, one of the diodes become forward biased whereas
the other gets reverse biased. Hence, current flows through the forward biased diode.
 When the voltage of the ac is negative, the pervious reversed biased diode becomes
forward biased whereas the other gets reversed biased. Hence, current flows through the
forward biased diode.
 Thus, current flows at least through one of the diodes at a time.
 There are two type of full wave rectifiers
 Full wave Bridge rectifier
 Center tapped transformer
Bridge rectifier
 Is an arrangement of four or more diodes in a bride circuit configuration which
provides the same output polarity for either input polarity. It is used for converting ac
input to dc output.
 For the negative region of the input the conducting diodes are D1 and D4.
Center tapped transformer
 A second popular full-wave rectifier with only two diodes but requiring a center
tapped (CT) transformer to establish the input signal across each section of the
secondary of the transformer.
Center tapped transformer full wave Network condition for positive source
rectifier
Network condition for negative source

Clippers
 There are a variety of diode networks called clippers that have the ability to “clip”
off a portion of the input signal without distorting the remaining part of the
alternating waveform.
 Half wave rectifier is simple example of diode clipper circuit containing 1 resistor
and diode.
 Depending on the orientation of the diode, the positive or negative region of the
input signal is “clipped” off.
 Types of clipper circuit
Series clipper ( when the diode is in series with the load)
Parallel clipper (when the diode in a branch parallel to the load )

Clampers
 The clamping network is one that will “clamp” a signal to a different dc level.
The network must have a capacitor, a diode, and a resistive element, but it can
also employ an independent dc supply to introduce an additional shift.
 The magnitude of R and C must be chosen such that the time constant RC is
large enough to ensure that the voltage across the capacitor does not discharge
significantly during the interval the diode is nonconducting.
Clamper circuit
Voltage Regulators
 Is the device connected to the output of a filtered rectifier.
 It maintains a constant output voltage despite changes in the input voltage or the
load current .
Power supply
The DC power supply convert the standard 220V, 50Hz AC available at the wall
outlets in to a constant DC voltage.
Since DC voltage is used in most electronic circuit.
capacitor is used to filter the output of the rectifier, charging during each quarter-
cycle that the input voltage exceeds the capacitor voltage, and discharging through
the load when the input voltage decrease below the capacitor voltage at which the
point the diodes become reverse biased.
Cont…
 DC power Supply
Thank You
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UNIVERSITY OF GONDAR

Network condition for negative source

Parallel clipper (when the diode in a branch parallel to the load )

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