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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 ...
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.
Avalanche diodes are optimized for avalanche effect, so they exhibit small but significant voltage drop under breakdown conditions, unlike Zener diodes that always maintain a voltage higher than breakdown. [dubious – discuss] This feature provides better surge protection than a simple Zener diode and acts more like a gas-discharge tube ...
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 ...
An electron avalanche is a process in which a number of free electrons in a transmission medium are subjected to strong acceleration by an electric field and subsequently collide with other atoms of the medium, thereby ionizing them (impact ionization).
In an avalanche, one carrier collides with other atoms and knocks free new carriers. The result is that for each carrier that starts across a barrier, several carriers synchronously arrive. The result is a wide-bandwidth high-power source. Conventional diodes can be used in breakdown. The avalanche breakdown also has multistate noise.
Debt snowball vs. debt avalanche method: Which payoff ... - AOL
A Zener diode contains a heavily doped p–n junction allowing electrons to tunnel from the valence band of the p-type material to the conduction band of the n-type material, such that the reverse voltage is "clamped" to a known value (called the Zener voltage), and avalanche does not occur. Both devices, however, do have a limit to the maximum ...