Introduction to diodes

Diodes are among the oldest and most widely used of electronic devices. A diode may be
defined as a near-unidirectional conductor whose state of conductivity is determined by the
polarity of its terminal voltage.
The ideal diode is a perfect two-state device that exhibits zero impedance when forward-
biased and infinite impedance when reverse-biased as shown below;

Figure 1. Diode Terminal characteristics

Examples 1: Find voltage VL in the circuit shown in figure 2. where D is an ideal diode.
The analysis is simplified if a The'venin equivalent is found for the circuit.

*The'venin Theorem: It is possible to simplify any linear circuit, no matter how complex, to a
single voltage source and series resistance connected to a load*

Figure 2
Step 1: After replacing the network to the left of terminals a, b with the The'venin equivalent,
assume forward bias and replace diode D with a short circuit, as in Fig 2(b).

Step 2: By Ohm's law,

Example 2: Find the value of VT in Figure 2 at 200C. Recalling that absolute zero is
-2730C.

Therefore;

In commercially available diodes, proper doping (impurity addition) of the base material
results in distinct static terminal characteristics. A comparison of Ge- and Si-base diode
characteristics is shown in Fig. 3. If reverse voltage -VR < VD < -0.1V, both diode types
exhibit a near-constant reverse current IR. Typically, 1μA < IR < 500μA for Ge, while 10-3 μA
< IR < 1μA for Si, for signal-level diodes (forward current ratings of less than 1 A). For a
forward bias, the onset of low-resistance conduction is between 0.2 and 0.3V for Ge, and
between 0.6 and 0.7V for Si.
 Figure 4:Comparison of Ge- and Si-base diode characteristics

For both Si and Ge diodes, the saturation current (Io) doubles for an increase in temperature
of 100C; in other words, the ratio of saturation current at temperature T2 to that at temperature
T1 is:

Example: Find the percentage increase in the reverse saturation current of a diode if the
temperature is increased from 250C to 500C.

Answer = 565.7%