Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
Diode IV Curve
Experiment
LabVIEW Graphical Representations
Abstract:
A LabVIEW simulation was run in order to see how an electrical signal
flowed to four different LED lights. A bread board circuit was set up and using
LabVIEW as a function control and also graphical output simulator, voltage was
run through the system. Once the system reached a certain current, the LEDs
would start to glow. Once they glowed completely, depending on the inputs on
the LabVIEW interface, graphical outputs of diode IV characteristics and change in
voltage with respect to current were gathered. From this lab, it is now known that
each of the four LED lights showed similar trends of blue, yellow, green, and red
IV characteristics, where blue took the most voltage to turn on at 2.47 bolts, then
green at 1.7 volts, and green and red turned on at 1 volt. Also, the red LED has the
highest voltage with respect to current. This all shows that the red LED takes the
longest to turn on.
Synopsis:
When lighting an LED, each color has a particular IV characteristic. Because
of this, voltage and current of each color LED differ. By using LabVIEW, it visually
shows the characteristics of each color LED with the IV characteristic graphs. Also,
voltage versus current graphs were created by LabVIEW to show the rate of
voltage change with respect to the current through the system. With both of
these graphical outputs, the voltage it takes to turn on each color LED was
understood.
Apparatus:
The electrical components used to construct the circuit consisted of a
power source, a voltage output reader, various colored diodes, a 1k resistor, a
bread board and the required test leads to connect the components into a circuit.
The below image expresses the complete set up of all the above listed
electrical components. The only aspect of the test equipment left out is the
The below figure explains the orientation of the resistor and diode in the
circuit used to run the testing for the diode IV curves.
(Vd)
Results:
Equations
IV characteristics
Red IV
Green IV
Yellow IV
Blue IV
dV/dI
Red dV/dI
Green dV/dI
Yellow dV/dI
Blue dV/dI
Conclusions:
All of the IV curves showed the same trend in that a specific amount of
voltage was required to turn on the specific diodes. The red diode activated at
1.45 volts, the green diode at 1.7 volts, yellow diode was 1.75 volts and the blue
diode activated at 2.4 volts. These voltages relate to the below table which
expresses the voltage drops for various colored diodes. The exact voltage values
do not measure up perfectly, but the experimental trend matches the theoretical
trend expressed in the below table. The red diode required the least voltage, then
green, yellow, and finally the blue diode required the highest voltage to turn on.
All of the IV slopes exponentially increased. The rate in which current increased
ranging from lowest to the highest was the red, blue, green and yellow diode
according to the graphs.
The second set of graphs are the rates of change of voltage over current.
The rate of change in current is greater than the rate of change of the voltage
resulting in the exponential downwards slope, and eventual leveling, of the
graphs.
In the end our data concluded that voltage does drop across a
diode/resistor electrical circuit.
Conventional LEDs are made from a variety of inorganic semiconductor materials. The
following table shows the available colors with wavelength range, voltage drop and material:
Color
Wavelength
[nm]
Voltage drop
[V]
Infrared
> 760
V < 1.63
Red
Orange
Semiconductor material
Gallium arsenide (GaAs)
Aluminium gallium arsenide (AlGaAs)
Aluminium gallium arsenide (AlGaAs)
Gallium arsenide phosphide (GaAsP)
Aluminium gallium indium phosphide (AlGaInP)
Gallium(III) phosphide (GaP)
Gallium arsenide phosphide (GaAsP)
Aluminium gallium indium phosphide (AlGaInP)
Gallium(III) phosphide (GaP)
Yellow
Green
Blue
Violet
Multiple types