§5 The Zener diode

§5.1 Regulation with the Zener diode

All diodes, if sufficiently reversed biased, will break down and begin to conduct
quite well. This can be a disaster if the current gets high enough to overheat the
diode. However, it turns out that one can design diodes that break down at
particular and well define voltages in the range 2-200 V, and these are useful for
voltage stabilization. They are called Zener diodes
The basic circuit is very simple. As the positive applied voltage increases, with
the diode non-conducting (note it is reversed biased), all the input voltage drops
across the diode, with no current flowing. Eventually, Zener breakdown begins
and current starts to flow, so part of the input voltage is dropped across the
resistor and less across the diode. You can get the diode voltage from a load
line analysis, just as in the forward direction; because of the steepness of the
characteristic above breakdown the diode voltage is almost, but not quite,
constant. We will return to this in a moment.
Lecture8\Zener1.cytnote that the CC 5.1 V Zener voltage is defined at 20 mA.
(examples from the RS catalogue are 2.4 V, 12 mA and 75 V, 0.2 mA)

The current drawn from the source is about (Vin - VZ) /Rcl, where Rcl is the
resistance shown above as 10 k, which we call the current limiting resistance. Its
purpose is just that, because is that any diode has a maximum power it can
handle. As an example, suppose Vin = 15 V and VZ = 5 V and the power rating of
the Zener is 400 mW. Then the Zener current should be less than about 0.4 / 5 =
80 mA . A 10 V = 15 – 5 V drop across the current limiting resistor sets its value
at 10/ 0.08 = 125 Ω.

In real applications, the high resistance voltmeter is replaced by a finite

resistance load RL, and the source current is shared between this resistor and
the diode. To get good regulation, that is independence of output voltage upon
the load, we must first make sure the diode current is high enough to keep it well
in the Zener breakdown region. This puts a lower limit on the load resistance, or
equivalently an upper limit on the current we can draw.

In the example above, we had a total maximum current of 80 mA, and the Zener
needs 20 mA to be in its operating regime. So we can draw no more than 60
mA; the load resistor must not be less than 5 / 60.10-3 = 83 Ω.

This makes sure the diode is firmly on the Zener part of the reverse
characteristic. Regulation now depends on the slope of this part, parameterised
through the dynamic resistance rZ, a quantity always given with VZ in a diode’s
description.

A typical value of rz (remember the steeper the lower) is 2 Ω. So, in the case
above when the Zener current drops from 80 mA to 20 mA, the output voltage
changes by 60*2 mV =0.12 V. The regulation is 0.12 / 5 or 2.4%.

[A little bit of circuit analysis shows that the regulation is rZ / (rZ + RL), =2/85 here]

What about stability of the output with respect to the supply? Suppose the
supply dropped by 20% from 15 V to 12 V. Taking the no-load case for
simplicity, by how much does the output voltage change? If we know the change
of current, we can use the dynamic resistance to get the change in output
voltage. Under no-load conditions with a 15 V supply, the Zener current was 80
mA. With the new 12 V, the current is (12-5)/125 = 56 mA, so the change in
current is 24 mA. Multiplying this by the dynamic resistance means that there
has been a drop in voltage of 48 mV in 5 V, or just about 1% compared with the
20% supply voltage drop.

§5.2 The diode clipper

This is another Zener diode application, the intention being to produce pulses
with squared tops and uniform height from a positive input pulse. The mode of
operation is almost as before, exactly so for the circuit shown above. The diode
operates in reverse bias, offering zero resistance when the voltage reaches VZ.

Lecture8\Clipper.cytThe second circuit clips in both directions of current flow by

using opposed Zeners to provide the low resistance route. Note that even when
the reverse biased Zener is conducting, there will be a drop of about 0.6 V over
the forward biased diode. Hence the amplitude of the clipped pulse is ±( VZ +
0.6).

Lecture8\Clipper2.cyt

Such circuits can be used to process variable pulses for later electronics, or to
provide protection from transient overloads.
That finishes our look at diode applications. I am going to talk about transistors
now, but modelling them with as a pair of diodes. The most important difference
between a diode and a transistor is that the latter has an extra, current
controlling, input; it is a three (rather than two) terminal device.