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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]
Schematic V-A characteristics of avalanche or Zener diode with a breakdown voltage of 17 V. (Note: with breakdown voltage over ca. 6 V, avalanche diodes are used instead of Zener diodes; also the voltage scale is different on the forward-biased positive side than the reverse-biased negative side.) Date: 15 January 2007: Source: Own work: Author ...
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These characteristics are also known as I–V curves, referring to the standard symbols for current and voltage. In electronic components with more than two terminals, such as vacuum tubes and transistors, the current–voltage relationship at one pair of terminals may depend on the current or voltage on a third terminal. This is usually ...
Under reverse bias, the diode equation's exponential term is near 0, so the current is near the somewhat constant reverse current value (roughly a picoampere for silicon diodes or a microampere for germanium diodes, [1] although this is obviously a function of size).
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The Shockley diode equation relates the diode current of a p-n junction diode to the diode voltage .This relationship is the diode I-V characteristic: = (), where is the saturation current or scale current of the diode (the magnitude of the current that flows for negative in excess of a few , typically 10 −12 A).