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In electronics, the Zener effect (employed most notably in the appropriately named Zener diode) is a type of electrical breakdown, discovered by Clarence Melvin Zener. It occurs in a reverse biased p-n diode when the electric field enables tunneling of electrons from the valence to the conduction band of a semiconductor , leading to numerous ...
Avalanche diodes (commonly encountered as high voltage Zener diodes) are constructed to break down at a uniform voltage and to avoid current crowding during breakdown. These diodes can indefinitely sustain a moderate level of current during breakdown. The voltage at which the breakdown occurs is called the breakdown voltage.
In electronics, an avalanche diode is a diode (made from silicon or other semiconductor) that is designed to experience avalanche breakdown at a specified reverse bias voltage. The junction of an avalanche diode is designed to prevent current concentration and resulting hot spots, so that the diode is undamaged by the breakdown.
The first paper dealing with avalanche transistors was Ebers & Miller (1955).The paper describes how to use alloy-junction transistors in the avalanche breakdown region in order to overcome speed and breakdown voltage limitations which affected the first models of such kind of transistor when used in earlier computer digital circuits.
Severely overloaded Zener diodes in reverse bias shorting. A sufficiently high voltage causes avalanche breakdown of the Zener junction; that and a large current being passed through the diode causes extreme localised heating, melting the junction and metallisation and forming a silicon-aluminium alloy that shorts the terminals.
At breakdown, the electric field frees bound electrons. If the applied electric field is sufficiently high, free electrons from background radiation may be accelerated to velocities that can liberate additional electrons by collisions with neutral atoms or molecules, in a process known as avalanche breakdown .
Examples: Debt snowball vs. debt avalanche The best way to get a sense of how these repayment strategies compare is to look at a few examples. Example 1: Similar balances, different rates
Graphical analysis is a simple way to derive a numerical solution to the transcendental equations describing the diode. As with most graphical methods, it has the advantage of easy visualization. By plotting the I-V curves, it is possible to obtain an approximate solution to any arbitrary degree of accuracy. This process is the graphical ...