Real to Ideal

We have seen what the p-n junction does when biased. But it is very messy! At first, we will work with the ideal diode:
In forward bias, the ideal diode is a perfect conductor In reverse bias, it is a perfect insulator The terms forward and reverse bias indicate there is a polarity to the diode, which is distinguished by its conductive state

We should keep in mind that some of those non-ideal characteristics come in very handy

I-V of an Ideal Diode

If a negative voltage, relative to the polarity of the diode, is applied, no current flows. The diode is said to be reverse biased. All voltages below zero on an I-V curve are taken to be reverse bias voltages If a positive voltage is applied, current will flow. The ideal diode, in fact will behave like a short circuit All voltage above zero on an I-V curve are taken to be forward bias voltages The ideal diode is thus a piecewise linear device
Its response is composed of two linear regimes Circuits that do not cross from one regime to the other can still be treated as linear But if they do cross over, they can no longer be treated so simply

Confused about Anode and cathode? The terms come from the original diodes which were vacuum tube devices

An application
Even with this simplistic model, we can look at what is probably the most common application of a diode: rectification A long time ago it was demonstrated that AC power is much more efficiently transferred over long distances, thus we have out 120V 60Hz But most modern (and old!) systems need DC power. How do we get DC from AC?
AC means that the polarity of the signal switches every halfperiod. This means that the time integral of the charge that would be moved to a system is zero! (AC cant charge a battery) If we stripped out one of these polarities, then we would have a net charge transferred Diodes offer this possibility with their polarity dependent conductivity

The Rectifier
Lets take a closer look: An AC signal is sent into a rectifier circuit, which consists of a diode, followed by a resistive load When the signals polarity puts the diode in forward bias, the current can flow. But when the polarity swings to the reverse bias regime, the current stops This delivers a crude polarized voltage (not DC, but could be used to charge a battery) Other, better designs will be covered later

Logic?
OK, a rectifier is a pretty cool application for such a simple device, but what else can we do with it? How about making digital logic circuits! Yes, I said logic, as in computer logic. How you say? We saw the basic function in our rectifier circuit:
A digital logic circuit should output only two voltages levels, lets say 0 and +5V for example We saw in the rectifier circuit that, depending on the polarity of the input signal, we could have the voltage drop across the load resistor or the diode. Now thinking back to voltage dividers, we know that the output voltage will depend on the ratio of the resistor near ground vs. the total resistance. The diode can switch between infinite and zero resistance that sure sounds like a device that could produce a binary output.

OK Thats Logical
Here is how such a logic gate would work: The example shown here is an OR gate
An OR gate will output a high value if any of the inputs is high If all the inputs of this device are low (near 0V), the diodes will be unconductive and there will be no current flowing across R, thus no voltage drop. The output will be 0 If one of the inputs is +5V, then the diode will conduct. All the voltage will drop across the resistor, therefore the output will be +5V. If any other diodes are also biased, the result will be the same

vA 0 1 0 1

vB 0 0 1 1

vY 0 1 1 1

This is the logic function of an OR gate

There has to be a catch

If functional logic gates were so simple, why do computers use transistors? The diode logic gates have some major limitations
Remember back to our discussions of amplifiers. One of the reasons to use amplifiers is because they allow for driving multiple loads. This is important because in most useful logic processes the output from one stage will not only be sent to yet another stage, but often will be sent to multiple stages simultaneously. This implies a large demand for current which means you need active stages (powered) Passive stages like the diode logic just cant handle the loads. Also, as will soon learn, real diodes have some characteristics that will make the logic gates function in a less than ideal manner.

But is it still interesting to see that the simplest imaginable nonlinear behavior can yield a rich pallet of functionality

The Perils of Nonlinearity

Since diodes have a state dependent conductivity, we will find analysis of circuits more challenging. It is not always obvious if a particular diode is actually conducting or not. If one is conducting or not, the voltage drop across it will be radically different, changing the rest of the circuit and possibly influencing the other diodes!

Breadcrumbs...
We have to start with an assumption, based on our understanding of diodes. After the analysis we have to go back and see if the state of the circuit is consistent with our assumptions. For example, in this circuit, we can assume the diode 2 is conducting.
Diode 2 has +10V at its anode. In this case, the cathode is connected either connected to ground, if diode 1 is conducting, or to a negative voltage if not. We can assume this means it is in forward bias.

Circuit Analysis
How about diode 1?
Its anode is connected to ground. This means it might be in either state, depending on the voltage at node B. With diode 2 assumed to be conducting, we can treat the circuit as a voltage divider With a 10k resistor next to the +10V supply and a 5k resistor next to the 10V supply, we should expect the divider voltage to be positive: greater voltage drop meaning the voltage at node B must be less than zero.

Check it twice
Diode 1 must also be conducting because we can see that it is also biased such that it should be in forward bias. Now the circuit can be solved as if the diodes arent there (their resistance is zero). Note diodes also indicate the direction of current flow. Note also the circuit is trivial, its not even a voltage divider because of the ground! Finally one can go back and see if the diodes are actually conducting: They are (how? Look at the direction of current flow. Is it consistent with the forward bias mode? Yes it is)

But First
Monday I talked about using rectification to charge a battery. I want to go into this in a little more detail: Consider the circuit shown here.
The diode ensures a net charge is deposited on the battery. Based on the polarity, we can also see that that charge is of the right sign (positive charge to the positive terminal). This is important! We have to carefully consider when the diode is forward biased!

Battery Charger
We can determine the duty cycle for charging the battery. Duty cycle means for a periodic waveform, how often is the signal on. This can be determine for how much of the input sine waves cycle is above 12V. For this case In this case, the battery is being charged only 1/3 of the time What would happen if we got rid of the resistor? Bad things! The circuit would effectively become a short for any voltage above 12V
House catches fire Battery explodes Fuse blows avoids other options

Cos =

12V = 60 24V

Duty Cycle =

2 2 60 1 = = 360 360 3

Also note that the diode prevents the battery from trying to charge the AC source by blocking the flow of current from it

Forward Bias
Remember that in the ideal diode, we saw two characteristics of forward bias:
The diode conducted perfectly This conduction started as soon as the applied bias exceeded zero volts.

A real diode is different from this.

The I-V relationship is exponential, and even the best diode can never be a perfect conductor like the theory The turn on voltage for the diode is not zero volts, but is instead positive and varies according to the materials the diode is composed of.

Forward Bias I-V

The equation for the forward bias of a junction diode is: IS is called the saturation current or the scale current due to its dependence on the size of the diode. For small signal diodes, IS on the order of fA (That means 10-15A As a rule of thumb, the saturation current doubles with every increase of 5C VT is the thermal voltage, it is linearly dependent on temperature At room temperature, VT=25.2mV, but for fast calculations can be approximated as 25 mV. Why does 0.2mV matter? VT sits in an exponential, so any small difference will amount to a large difference in the final value.
v nV T i = I S e 1

kT VT = q

Forward Bias I-V II

The constant, n, has a value between 1 and 2, depending on the material and physical structure of the diode:
Diodes fabricated by standard integrated circuit methods have values of n=1 Discrete diodes generally have n=2 We will assume n=1 unless stated otherwise

If I>>IS, we can simplify the equation to an exponential relationship i I S e v nVT Alternatively, we can express this relationship in a i logarithmic form v = nVT ln IS This logarithmic relationship between v and i hold for many decades of current (as much as 7 decades!). This property has been used for some interesting applications: Think, how would you take the natural log of something electronically?