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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 ...
For example, a diode with a Zener breakdown voltage of 3.2 V exhibits a voltage drop of very nearly 3.2 V across a wide range of reverse currents. The Zener diode is therefore well suited for applications such as the generation of a reference voltage (e.g. for an amplifier stage), or as a voltage stabilizer for low-current applications. [2]
These are diodes that conduct in the reverse direction when the reverse bias voltage exceeds the breakdown voltage. These are electrically very similar to Zener diodes (and are often mistakenly called Zener diodes), but break down by a different mechanism: the avalanche effect. This occurs when the reverse electric field applied across the p ...
However, if one is interested in some particular current level, it will require a "knee" voltage before that current level is reached (~0.7 V for silicon diodes, others listed at Diode § Forward threshold voltage for various semiconductors). [2] Above the knee, the current continues to increase exponentially.
Zener diode – allows current to flow "backwards" when a specific set voltage is reached. Transient voltage suppression diode (TVS), unipolar or bipolar – used to absorb high-voltage spikes Varicap, tuning diode, varactor, variable capacitance diode – a diode whose AC capacitance varies according to the DC voltage applied.
An avalanche diode displays a similar stable voltage over a range of current. The most stable diodes of this type are made by temperature-compensating a Zener diode by placing it in series with a forward diode; such diodes are made as two-terminal devices, e.g. the 1N821 series having an overall voltage drop of 6.2 V at 7.5 mA, but are also ...
The saturation current (or scale current), more accurately the reverse saturation current, is the part of the reverse current in a semiconductor diode caused by diffusion of minority carriers from the neutral regions to the depletion region. This current is almost independent of the reverse voltage.
Reverse leakage current in a semiconductor device is the current when the device is reverse biased.. Under reverse bias, an ideal semiconductor device should not conduct any current, however, due to attraction of dissimilar charges, the positive side of the voltage source draws free electrons (majority carriers in the n-region) away from the P-N junction.