Special purpose Diodes

Zener Diode
A silicon pn juntion device
Desing to operate in reverse breakdown region.
act as voltage regulator

Temperature coefficient
It specifies the percentage change in zever voltage for

each degree celcious change in temperature.

Zener power dissipation:
Zenere diode are specified to operate at max. power

called dissipating power.

P=IV

Derating power
The derating power is expressed in mW/C.
P(derated)=P(max) (mW/C)T

Zener diode application

The zener diode can be used as a type of voltage

regulator for providing stable reference voltages.

Zener as a limiter:
During the negative alternation, the zener acts as a
forward-biased diode and limits the negative voltage to
-0.7V.
When the zener is turned around, the negative peak is
limited by zener action and the positive voltage is
limited to +0.7 V.

The Varactor Diode

These are design to use the juntion capacitance.
They are also used as a voltage controller capacitor.
Varactor diodes are also referred to as varicaps or

tuning diodes.

The Varactor Diode

Always operate in reverse biase condition
It is doped to maximize the inherent capacitance of the

depletion region.
Basic operation
Capacitance is determined by the parameters of plate area
(A),dielectric constant
C=Ad
As reverse bias voltage inceases depletion region
widens,effectively increasing the plate seperation thus
decreasing capacitance.when reverse biased voltage
decreases the depletion region narrows thus inreasing
capacitance

in varactor diode these capacitance parameters are

controlled by method of dopping and size and
geometery of diode construction.
Nominal vractor capacitance are available from few
picofarads to several hundred picofarads.

Optical Diode
There are three types ..
LED

Quantum Dots
Photodiode

LEd
It stands for light emitting diode.

Basic operation.
When the device is forward-biased, electrons cross the
pn junction from the n-type material and recombine
with holes in the p-type material. Recall from Chapter
1 that these free electrons are in the conduction band
and at a higher energy than the holes in the valence
band. The difference in energy between the electrons
and the holes corresponds to the energy of visible
light.

LED semiconductor material

gallium arsenide (GaAs) was used in early LEDs and

emits IR radiation, which is invisible.

The first visible red LEDs were produced using gallium
arsenide phosphide (GaAsP) on a GaAs substrate.
The efficiency was increased using a gallium
phosphide (GaP) substrate, resulting in brighter red
LEDs and also allowing orange LEDs

LED biasing
The forward voltage across an LED is considerably

greater than for typical silicon diode

The amount of power output translated into light is
directly proportional to forward current.the intesity of
light increases when current increases

APPLICATIONS OF LED
1.SEVEN segment display
Standard LEDs are used in indicator lamps and

readout displays on wide variety of instruments

ranging from consumer appliances to scientific
apparatus.a common type of display device is seven
segment display.
Each segment in the display is LED,by forward biasing
the selected combination we can display the desired
decimal digit.

REMORT CONTROL
One common application of an infrared LED is in

remote control units of TV,DVD,gate openers etc.

The IR LED sends out the beam of invisible light that
is sensed by receiver in your TV.for each button on the
tv there is unique code.when a specific button is
pressed a coded electrical signal is generated that goes
to LED which converts the electrical signal to the code
and takes action

OPTICAL Coupling applications

IR LEDs are used in optical coupling applications often

in conjuction with fiber optics

Areas of applications include idustrial processing and
control,bar graph readers and optical switching

Industrial application
LED is used in an industrial application.like it is used

to count the boxes passing through the conveyer belt.

The particular system is used to count baseballs as
they fed down.when box passes IR beam emitted by
LED is intrupted
An electronic circuits count each time beam is
interupted
When preset no of balls have passed a stopped
mechanism is applied

Traffic lights
LEDs are quickly replacing the traditional bulbs in

traffic lights
Arrays of tiny LEDs form the red,green and yellow
lights.
Array of LED has three advantages brighter
light,longer life time and less energy consumption
LEDs in array are connected either in parallal or in
series

Quantum Dots
Quantum dots are form of nanocrystals made from

semiconductor material such as silicon,germinium

Quantum dots are only 1nm to 12 nm in diameter.
Billions of dots can be fitted on the head of a pin.
Because of small size quantum effects arise due to
confinment of electrons and holes as a result aterial
properties are very different than normal material
One important property is that the band gap is
dependent on the size of dots

 When excited from external source dots emitt the light

in visible as well as in invisible range

The higher frequncy blue light is emitted by smaller
dots
Red light is emitted by larger dots
They are not diode itself but they can be used in
construction of LEDs.
They are used to modify the basic colour of LEDs.

photodiode
The photodiode is a device that operates in reverse

biased
The photodiode has small transparent window that
allow the light to strike the pn junction.
Basic operation
When reverse biased a diode has very small leakage
current.the same is true for photodiode
The reverse current is produced by thermally
generated electron hole pair in depletion region

continud
Which are swept through the pn junction by the

electric field created by reverse voltage

The reverse leakage current increases with
temperature
When pn junction is exposed to light reverse current
increases
When there is no incident light then current is
negligible this is called dark current.

Other types of diodes

Laser diode
The schottky diode
The PIN diode

The step recovery diode

The tunnel diode
Current regulator diode

LASER diode
The term LASER stands for light amplification by

stimulated emission of radiation

LASER light is monochromatic which means with
single wavelenght
LASER diode emits coherent light and LED emits
incoherent light
Construction
A pn junction is formed by two layers of galium
arsenide.

 There is highly reflective surface on the one end of pn

junction and a partially reflective surface on the other

end forming a cavity
Basic operation
The LASER diode is forward biased by external voltage
source.as electrons move through the
junction,electron recombine with holes and photon is
generated
Photons strike with other atoms and generate more
photons

Application of LASER diode

LASER diode and photodiodes are used in pick up

systems of compact disk(CD).audio information is

digitally recorded in stereo on the surface of CD in the
form of microscopic pits and flats.
A lense arrangment focuses the laser beam from the
diode to CD surface.as the CD rotates the lense and
beam follow the track
The signal from photodiode is used to reproduce the
signal

Schottky diode
These are high current diodes used primerly in high

frequency and fast switching applications

They are also called hot carrier diodes
Hot carrier is derived from the fact that electrons in n
type have higher energy as compared to p type.
A schottky diode is formed by joining the dopped
silicon material with metal
Forward voltage drop is around 0.3 volts
It only operates with majority carriers
There are no minority carriers and no reverse current

The PIN diode

The PIN diode consists of heavily dopped p and n

region seperated by an intrinsic region

When reverse biased pin diode acts like constant
capacitance
When forward biased it acts like current controlled
variable resistance
The pin diode is used as dc controlled microwave
switch operated by rapid changes in bias.

The step recovery diode

The step recovery diode uses graded dopping where

dopping level of semiconductive material is reduced as

pn junction is approached
It is also allows rapid re-establishment of forward
current when switching from reverse to forward biased
This is used in very high frequency and fast switching
applications

The tunnel diode

The tunnel diode exhibit a special characterstics

known as negative resistance.

This feature makes it usefull in oscillator and
microwave amplifier application
They are constructed with germinium or galium
arsenide.
The heavy dopping results in narrow depletion region
The heavy dopping allow electrons to tunnel through
the pn junction

Current regulator diode

The current regulator diode is often reffered to as

constant current diode

Rather than maintaing the voltage it maintains the
constant current