Electronics Lab Report: Experiment 4

Ivor Allan Jake Denham-Dyson: 737213

May 13, 2016

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1 Introduction
Semiconducter devices are built from semiconducter materials which exhibit charge transportation prop-
erties that are somewhere between a conductor and insulator. In this lab we aim to determine how the
junction of two oppositely doped semiconductors called a diode affects current flow. We discuss the bias of
the diode and its role in the half-wave and full wave rectifier and then wish to determine applications of a
Diode limiter circuit by investigating the phenomena diode clipping.

Figure 1: Various materials and their conductivity (B. Van Zeghbroeck, 2011)

2 Theory
2.1 Band Gap and Bias
Conductivity of a material is closely related to the band gap of a material which determines the energy
difference between electrons in the conduction band and valence band.

Figure 2: A comparison of the band gaps of metals, insulators and semiconductors.

It is clear differnt materials require differnt energies for electrons to move into the conduction band, these
properties can be altered by introducing dopants. A semiconducter is called extrinsic if dopant is added
otherwise it is pure. These dopants serve to create donated electrons free to move through the material
further saturating the number of allowable states or create an acceptor hole which intruduces a readily
available state for a electron to occupy.Due to the presence of an extra electron, donator impurites are
negative while acceptor impurities are positive, they are therefore called n-type and p-type semiconductors.

2.2 Diodes and Bias

A p-n junction can be created by joining both types of extrinsic semi-conductors called a diode and the
phenoma is similiar to that of two separated charge plates. An electro field is created from the flow of
electrones from the n-type semiconducter in to the p-types acceptor holes effectively inverting the charge at
the boundary of each semiconducter. This potential inhabits the flow of electrons further and this property

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produces the drectional properties of diodes which allow control of current flow by only allowing it in a
single direction. This introduces the two notions of forward and reverse bias.

Figure 3: At positve voltage the ’knee’ is eventually reached where the electric field is zero and all electrons
have have been forced back over to the n-type semiconducter, current flow is again allowed while at negative
voltage more electrons are forced into acceptor ’holes’.

(b) Current flows to the n-type semiconducter raising the

(a) Current flows to the p-type semiconductor and theelectric field until a breakdown occurs orders of magnitude
electric field is reduced steadily allowing current flow. further from the breakdown in forward bias.

This creates the current flow properties mentioned earlier for a specified voltage interval orders of
magnitude apart.

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2.3 Half Wave Rectifiers

(a) (b)

(c) (d)

Figure 5

From the theory discussion of forward and reverse bias (a), (b), (c) and (d) are in forward, reverse,
forward and reverse bias for a positive current and reverse, forward, reverse and forward bias for a neagtive
current respectively. We can summize what we expect,

Circuit Positive Current Negative Current

a slightly smaller V None
b None slightly smaller V
c V None
d None V

The slightly smaller V occurs because a diode produces its own voltage drop and acts similiary to a
resistor. This occurs as the electric field inside the diode must still be overcome and some of the potential
applied to the diode is spent overcoming the electric field. If the current applied is AC current the diode
oscillates between stopping and allowing current flow removing the negative portion of the wave. This
hints at diodes being useful in ldecision making circuits as we see from this plot generated using a decision
making statement.

i(x ):=If[sin(x) > 0, sin(x), 0]

Plot[i(x), {x, −15, 17}]

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 1.0

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

- 15 - 10 -5 5 10 15

Figure 6: Generated by the above conditional.

Diodes can be implemented in RC circuits

Figure 7: RC Diode circuit

1
Recall the capacitance is reactance of a capcitor is ωC . We expect the capacitor to discharge at the
peak of a waveform when

C∆V = Q = It
It
C=
∆V
I
C=
f ∆V

Hence the capacitor determines the voltage sag and a larger capacitor should reduce this voltage drop
up until a critical point where no voltage drop occurs. This implies some sag is always present.

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2.4 Full Wave Rectifier

Figure 8: A full wave rectifier

To determine the expected waveform we will use the approach of treating diodes as conditionals and
dividing up the the circuit to determine the cases where current can flow.

(a) Current flow with terminals + and - (b) Current flow with terminals - and +

i(x ):=If[sin(x) ≤ 0, − sin(x), 0] + If[sin(x) > 0, sin(x), 0]

Plot[i(x), {x, −15, 17}]

1.0

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

- 15 - 10 -5 5 10 15

Figure 10: We see from this that this is simply a sine wave with output = |input|

Combing this with the conclussions drawn from the behaviour of diodes in RC circuits the waveform
can be smoothed allowing a way to transform AC current into DC current.

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3 Diode Limiter
A diode limiter limits the output of current at specific directions of current flow by introducing applying a
load to a current branch containg the desired bias.

 
sin(x)
i(x ):=If sin(x) < 0, − , 0 + If[sin(x) ≥ 0, sin(x), 0]
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Plot[i(x), {x, −15, 17}]

1.0

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

- 15 - 10 -5 5 10 15

Figure 11: The inverted part of the wave has now been limited to a value

This is very useful in audio signals through the use of sidechaining. Sidechaining is using an signal to
limit another signal. One can make an audio signal amplitude to be proportional with load to be applied
to the input audio signa,l damping the signal. This allows the two signals not to intefere acoustically when
they are processed through a signal channel.

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4 Procedure
• Part 1a:

1. Build the circuits from fig 1.

2. Use AC current with the amplitude at maximum and use a sine wave with a frequency of 500Hz.
3. Ensure the f1 l, Vpp1 and Vpp2 are being measured.
4. Use the cursor function to measure ∆x (phase shift in seconds) between the peaks of Vin andVout .
5. Record the output for each circuit

• Part 1b:

1. Build the circuits from fig 1.

2. Use AC current with the amplitude at maximum a sine wave.
3. Ensure the f1 l, Vpp1 and Vpp2 are being measured.
4. Record the output for the following with the appropriate values of R, C and f as listed below
(a) R =10kΩ, f =500Hz
i. C =2 2nF
ii. C =220nF
iii. C =2 2µF
(b) C =220nF, f =500Hz
i. R =1kΩ
ii. R =100kΩ
(c) C =220nF,R =10kΩ
i. f =1kHz
ii. f =1 5kHz

• Part 2a:

1. Build the circuits from fig 5.

2. Use AC current with the amplitude at maximum.
3. Ensure the f1 l, Vpp1 and Vpp2 are being measured.
4. Record the output for the following.
(a) At 500HZ
i. Sine Wave
ii. Square Wave
iii. Triangle Wave

• Part 2b:

1. Build the circuit from fig 29.

2. Use AC current with the amplitude at maximum and a square wave at 500Hz.
3. Ensure the f1 l, Vpp1 and Vpp2 are being measured.
4. Record the output for each circuit

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5 Results

Figure 12: 5a

Figure 13: 5b

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Figure 14: 5c

Figure 15: 5d

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Figure 16: 7ai

Figure 17: 7aii

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Figure 18: 7aiii

Figure 19: 7bi

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Figure 20: 7bii

Figure 21: 7ci

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Figure 22: 7cii

Figure 23: 29a

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Figure 24: 29b

Figure 25: 29c

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Figure 26: 30a

Figure 27: 30b

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 Figure 28: 30c

Circuit Reactance
7a 144686
7b 1446.86
7c 144.686

Vpp
Circuit 0.7
29a 1.67
29b 2.62
29c 3.42

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6 Discussion
Comparing our prediction of what the output should look like with the output of 7a,7b,7c and 7d we see
the wav is cancelled when the diode is in reverse bias in repect to the currents sign and the slight loss in
voltage due to the voltage drop of the diode.
Observing 7ai, 7aii and 7aiii the effectiveness of increasing the capacitace can be seen as a only a small
voltage drop occurs across the two peaks. In 7aiii it is clear the capacitance is too large as it cannot fully
charge before the current is negated and the electric field in capacitor restores.
We note circuit 7 is essentialy a half wave rectifier attach to a filter and operates under the law V (t) =
t
V0 e− RC . Mathematically this means RC determines the rate of decay, an increase in resistance lengthens
this decay rate. This allows the capacitor to give off its stored charge over a longer period of time further
smoothing out signal.
Increasing the frequency makes it more difficult for the capacitor charge but reduces the time needed
for the capacitor to decay, a higher frequency needs a smaller capacitor and should be chosen by using the
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equation C = f ∆V .
From 30a, 30b and 30c the waveform is compressed at certain points agreeing with what is predicated
theoretically. Each diode in the circuit seems to reduce this voltage by 0.7 as calculated by the ratios for
each circuit. This is indeed the voltage drop that was reffered to in part 1 and is needed to overcome the
internal electric field in the diode. This value is called the knee.

7 Conclusion
By combining filters and rectifiers AC current can be converted into DC current. Rectifiers use diodes
to ensure current only flows in one dircection. A filter is then used to smooth out the wave form. The
capacitance should be large but small enough to fully charge in 12 of the waves cycle and the resitor should
also be large to ensure the capacitor emits its stored voltage slowly. Diodes can act as decision makers in
circuits and can be treated as electric switches, more complex systems of diodes can be built in transistors
which are the building blocks of logic gates such as AND, OR and NOT. These fundemental components are
found in computers and are used to perform all the computations which comprise the computing experience.

8 References
1. https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/diodes
2. http://www.electronics-tutorials.ws/diode/diode 3.html
3. http://www.electronics-tutorials.ws/diode/diode-clipping-circuits.html

4. http://ecee.colorado.edu/b̃art/book/book/contents.htm
5. http://didattica.uniroma2.it/assets/uploads/corsi/141016/Laboratory Half wave rectifier with capacitive filter.pdf

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9 Figures

(a) (b)

(c)

Figure 29

Figure 30

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