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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.
The Zener effect is distinct from avalanche breakdown. Avalanche breakdown involves minority carrier electrons in the transition region being accelerated, by the electric field, to energies sufficient for freeing electron-hole pairs via collisions with bound electrons. The Zener and the avalanche effect may occur simultaneously or independently ...
Because the avalanche breakdown is uniform across the whole junction, the breakdown voltage is nearly constant with changing current [clarification needed] when compared to a non-avalanche diode. [1] The Zener diode exhibits an apparently similar effect in addition to Zener breakdown. Both effects are present in any such diode, but one usually ...
A subsurface Zener diode, also called a buried Zener, is a device similar to the surface Zener, but the doping and design is such that the avalanche region is located deeper in the structure, typically several micrometers below the oxide. Hot carriers then lose energy by collisions with the semiconductor lattice before reaching the oxide layer ...
The difference between the avalanche diode (which has a reverse breakdown above about 6.2 V) and the Zener is that the channel length of the former exceeds the mean free path of the electrons, resulting in many collisions between them on the way through the channel.
The device operates by shunting excess current when the induced voltage exceeds the avalanche breakdown potential. It is a clamping device, suppressing all overvoltages above its breakdown voltage. It automatically resets when the overvoltage goes away, but absorbs much more of the transient energy internally than a similarly rated crowbar device.
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At the breakdown field, there is a balance between the production of new electrons (due to impact ionization) and the loss of electrons (due to attachment). Above the breakdown field, the number of electrons starts to grow exponentially, and an electron avalanche ( Townsend avalanche ) forms.