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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 ...
A Zener diode is a special type of diode designed to reliably allow current to flow "backwards" (inverted polarity) when a certain set reverse voltage, known as the Zener voltage, is reached. Zener diodes are manufactured with a great variety of Zener voltages and some are even variable.
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).
Tunnel diodes and Gunn diodes are examples of components that have negative resistance. Hysteresis vs single-valued: Devices which have hysteresis; that is, in which the current–voltage relation depends not only on the present applied input but also on the past history of inputs, have I–V curves consisting of families of closed loops. Each ...
These diodes can indefinitely sustain a moderate level of current during breakdown. The voltage at which the breakdown occurs is called the breakdown voltage . There is a hysteresis effect; once avalanche breakdown has occurred, the material will continue to conduct even if the voltage across it drops below the breakdown voltage.
Description: 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.)
Shockley derives an equation for the voltage across a p-n junction in a long article published in 1949. [2] Later he gives a corresponding equation for current as a function of voltage under additional assumptions, which is the equation we call the Shockley ideal diode equation. [3]
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