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Zener Effect

The Zener effect is a type of electrical breakdown that occurs in reverse biased p-n diodes when a strong electric field breaks the covalent bonds between semiconductor atoms, releasing many free minority carriers that suddenly increase the reverse current. It causes breakdown below 5V and is employed in Zener diodes. The effect differs from avalanche breakdown, which occurs above 5V and involves accelerated minority carriers causing electron-hole pairs through collisions. Zener breakdown is more common in heavily doped junctions that produce a narrow depletion region, while avalanche breakdown occurs in lightly doped junctions with a wider depletion layer.

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Zener Effect

The Zener effect is a type of electrical breakdown that occurs in reverse biased p-n diodes when a strong electric field breaks the covalent bonds between semiconductor atoms, releasing many free minority carriers that suddenly increase the reverse current. It causes breakdown below 5V and is employed in Zener diodes. The effect differs from avalanche breakdown, which occurs above 5V and involves accelerated minority carriers causing electron-hole pairs through collisions. Zener breakdown is more common in heavily doped junctions that produce a narrow depletion region, while avalanche breakdown occurs in lightly doped junctions with a wider depletion layer.

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Akash Deep
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Zener effect

Zener effect
The Zener effect is a type of electrical breakdown in a reverse biased p-n diode in which the electric field across the diode breaks some of the covalent bonds of the semiconductor atoms leading to a large number of free minority carriers, which suddenly increase the reverse current.[1] Zener breakdown is employed in a Zener diode.

Mechanism
Under a very high reverse voltage, the p-n junction's depletion region expands leading to a high strength electric field across the junction. This electric field The I-V curve for a diode showing avalanche and Zener breakdown. Note that the acts to break covalent bonds of the voltage increments in the negative range of the x-axis are larger than those in the positive range semiconductor atoms which liberates a large number of free minority carriers. This suddenly increases the reverse current and give rise to the high slope resistance of the Zener diode (i.e. the voltage across the diode stays very close to a well defined and constant value, with increasing current).

Relationship to the avalanche effect


The Zener effect is distinct from avalanche breakdown which involves minority carrier electrons in the transition region which are accelerated by the electric field to energies sufficient to free electron-hole pairs via collisions with bound electrons. Either the Zener or the avalanche effect may occur independently, or both may occur simultaneously. In general, diode junctions which break down below 5 V are caused by the Zener effect, while junctions which experience breakdown above 5 V are caused by the avalanche effect. Intermediate breakdown voltages (around 5V) are usually caused by a combination of the two effects. This Zener breakdown voltage is found to occur at electric field intensity of about 3107V/m.[1] Zener breakdown occurs in heavily doped junctions (p-type semiconductor moderately doped and n-type heavily doped), which produces a narrow depletion region. [2] The avalanche breakdown occurs in lightly doped junction, which produces a wider depletion layer. Temperature increases in the junction decrease Zener breakdown and increase the contribution of avalanche breakdown.

References
[1] "PN junction breakdown characteristics" (http:/ / www. circuitstoday. com/ pn-junction-breakdown-characteristics). Circuits Today. August 25 2009. . Retrieved August 16 2011. [2] (http:/ / people. seas. harvard. edu/ ~jones/ es154/ lectures/ lecture_2/ breakdown/ breakdown. html) Zener and Avalanche Breakdown/Diodes, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University

Article Sources and Contributors

Article Sources and Contributors


Zener effect Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=514831684 Contributors: Cyan.aqua, Larryisgood, LittleWink, MarkusHagenlocher, Not your siblings' deletionist, Rchandra, Wbm1058, 2 anonymous edits

Image Sources, Licenses and Contributors


File:I-V curve for a Zener Diode.svg Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:I-V_curve_for_a_Zener_Diode.svg License: Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 3.0 Contributors: User:Fred the Oyster

License
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported //creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

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