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In electronics, a varicap diode, varactor diode, variable capacitance diode, variable reactance diode or tuning diode is a type of diode designed to exploit the voltage-dependent capacitance of a reverse-biased p–n junction.
In electronics, a step recovery diode (SRD, snap-off diode or charge-storage diode or memory varactor [a]) is a semiconductor junction diode with the ability to generate extremely short pulses. It has a variety of uses in microwave (MHz to GHz range) electronics as pulse generator or parametric amplifier .
The thickness of the depletion layer of a reverse-biased semiconductor diode varies with the DC voltage applied across the diode. Any diode exhibits this effect (including p/n junctions in transistors), but devices specifically sold as variable capacitance diodes (also called varactors or varicaps ) are designed with a large junction area and a ...
When a small voltage is applied across the electrodes, only a tiny current flows, caused by reverse leakage through the diode junctions. When a large voltage is applied, the diode junction breaks down due to a combination of thermionic emission and electron tunneling, resulting in a large current flow. The result of this behavior is a nonlinear ...
Any reverse-biased semiconductor diode displays a measure of voltage-dependent capacitance and can be used to change the frequency of an oscillator by varying a control voltage applied to the diode. Special-purpose variable-capacitance varactor diodes are available with well-characterized wide-ranging values of capacitance. A varactor is used ...
These techniques are used to create special-purpose diodes that perform many different functions. [8] For example, to electronically tune radio and TV receivers (varactor diodes), to generate radio-frequency oscillations (tunnel diodes, Gunn diodes, IMPATT diodes), and to produce light (light-emitting diodes).
The classical varactor parametric oscillator consists of a semiconductor varactor diode connected to a resonant circuit or cavity resonator. It is driven by varying the diode's capacitance by applying a varying bias voltage. The circuit that varies the diode's capacitance is called the "pump" or "driver".
The wide intrinsic region makes the PIN diode an inferior rectifier (one typical function of a diode), but it makes it suitable for attenuators, fast switches, photodetectors, and high-voltage power electronics applications. The PIN photodiode was invented by Jun-Ichi Nishizawa and his colleagues in 1950. It is a semiconductor device.