EE 3110.

103
Electronic Devices Lab
3/31/2014

Lab #6: Small Diodes

Christian Quintero

Introduction:
In this lab you will see how AC voltage affects the characteristics of a diode. In this lab
you will apply both a DC and AC voltage to the diode. You will apply both forward and reversebias voltages. In forward bias you will observe how the AC voltage affects the effective
resistance and the depletion capacitance. Then in reverse-bias you will observe the depletion
capacitance.
Procedure:
5.1
Using the set up from the lab manual, you will manually set the voltages and current on
the lab equipment. For the lab you will apply a forward-bias voltage. You must manually
increase the voltage output.. You will read two voltages one which will go from the resistor to the
end of the diode and the other over the diode. Using these voltages you will find the current since
the branch is in series. With this current you will find both the resistance and capacitance.

5.2
For this section you will apply a reverse-bias voltage and obtain the current just like in
the first section. You will use a different set up which is also in the manual. From this section you
will only obtain the capacitance of the diode.

Analysis:
5.1
Since the Effective Resistance is inversely proportional to the current, as the current rises
the resistance will drop. You can see the trend from the data points we plotted. As well when
using equation 3 for the theoretical value, you will see that an ideality factor (n) of 2 resembles
the effective resistance the best. To calculate our Resistance and Capacitance in this lab we used
the list of equations below to find impedance. Once we had the impedance we could then solve
for our resistance and capacitance.

i=

V 1V 2
(R=10 )

z=V 2 /i ,

1
rd

()2(c )2
1

|Z|=

rd (Measured)
25
20
15
10
5
0
rd

Effective Resistance (Ohms)

Id (A)

rd (Theoretical)
2
1.5
n=1

Effective Resistance (Ohms)

n=2

0.5
0
3.5699999999999989E-2
4.1299999999999989E-2
4.8000000000000001E-2
5.2700000000000004E-2
5.8100000000000006E-2
6.3799999999999996E-2
6.8199999999999997E-2
7.3899999999999993E-2
7.8800000000000009E-2
8.4499999999999992E-2
9.0399999999999994E-2
9.509999999999999E-2
0.10100000000000001
0.10580000000000001
0.11610000000000001
0.1115

Id (A)
Next we measured the Charge Storage Capacitance, using the same impedance equation.
In equation 6 you see that the Ccs is proportional to the diode current, so as the current increases
the amount of charge is also increased.

Ccs
0
0
0
0
0

Capacitance (F)

Ccs

Id (A)

Nect we were asked to plot the general recombination lifetime which is the Effective
resistance times the Charge Storage Capacitance, given from eq. 7.

Recomb. Life Time

0
0
0
0

Rcomb. Lifetime

f(x) = - 0x + 0

0
0

t_g
Linear (t_g)

0
0
0
3.769999999999999E-2

Diode Current
5.2
As the voltage increases in reverse-bias the charge of the diode decreases, this is due to
the fact that the current in the diode is decreasing. In reverse-bias the amount of current that runs
through the diode is relatively small therefore the charge from before starts to falls.

Cd

Capacitance (F)

Voltage (mV)
15

C D ( V =0 )=2.4610

Conclusion:
By running an AC voltage across a diode you can determine its characteristics. You can
decrease the resistance of the diode so that it can allow more current to flow, or you can increase
the capacitance on the diode as well. In reverse bias the diode acts the same, as it allows very
little current to flow through. However this affects the capacitance and the charge is decreased.