Diodes and Half-Wave Rectification

Earl Carlos C. Esguerra

Malayan Colleges Laguna
[email protected]

1 ABSTRACT which lets electricity flow only in one

direction. Application of diodes is broad.
Diodes are the first non-linear component we They serve as converter from alternating
work with in this class. They are a building current to direct current, met at the power
block component in electronics and supplies. Also they can be used in radio
understanding them allows us to use them. equipment to decode amplitude modulation.
The Half wave rectifier is a circuit, which Nowadays, there are two basic
converts an ac voltage to dc voltage. It can semiconductor materials which the diode is
be used to obtain the desired level of dc made from: silicon and germanium Two
voltage. It provides isolation from the power types of semiconductors are joined to each
line. During the positive half cycle of the other to produce semiconductor diode. One
input voltage the polarity of the voltage across of them has spare holes ( p side), and the
the secondary forward biases the other has extra electrons (n side). This
diode. The forward biased diode offers a results in the flow of electrons from the side,
very low resistance and hence the voltage where there are more electrons to the side
drop across it is very small. During the negative where there are less of them, i.e. current.
half cycle of the input voltage the polarity of
the secondary voltage gets reversed. As a result,
the diode is reverse biased. The first part of lab,
there are tasks where we have to practically
understand the characteristics of semiconductor
diode. Specifically, measure forward and
reverse resistances, voltages and the current.
The measurements are to be collected into
table. This will lead to strengthening our
theoretical knowledge about the diodes.

2 KEYWORDS

DIODE Figure 1. A Half-Wave Diode Rectifier Circuit

N-TYPE
P-TYPE The significance of a half wave rectifier is
CHARGE only that its cheap, simple and easy to
SEMICONDUCTORS construct. It is cheap because of the low
number of components involved. Simple
3 INTRODUCTION because of the straight forwardness in circuit
design. The efficiency of half wave rectifier is
Diode is an electronic device having about 40.6%. This is less when
conductor at their ends. The principle behind compared to the full wave rectifier (81.2%).
the diode is similar to a valve or a gate,
However, it is difficult to flow for the
current in the reverse direction. Connecting
electrodes are following: positive p-side is
anode, and negative n-side is cathode.
Understanding the characteristics of each type
of diode device, recognizing the
specification of each type of these devices,
and learning how to test the characteristics of
each type of diode by using various
instruments are the main objectives of the
experiment.
Figure 3. Voltage – Current characteristics of
4 RESULTS semiconductor diode

The initial task was to measure the forward Forward breakdown voltage after which
and reverse resistance of silicon and current exponentially grows with voltage
germanium diodes. From the theory, diodes increase starts at about 0.15 V
have high resistance whilst the reverse bias As we can see from the table of
and low resistance when they are forward germanium diode, its voltage and current are
bias. related with some function, not proportional.
With the increase of current, the voltage
increases and vice versa. For the reverse bias
case, there is no current flow. However,
Figure 2. Resistance test for forward and there is a theoretical breakdown voltage,
reverse bias diode approximately -100 volts, after which there
is a reverse current flow, usually followed
The aim of this task was to measure the by diode burning.
voltage as a function of current during the
forward bias, and the current as a function of
voltage during the reverse bias. First guess
refreshed from theory is that voltage has to
increase if the current increases. However, we
have to bear in mind, that in
this case current flows from anode to
cathode. For the opposite, there is no current
until breakdown voltage, i.e. reverse bias Figure 3. Waveforms of Vs(10Vpp) and Vo
case. (1K Ώ)

From this lab we know how to build a half

wave rectifier circuit. For building we must
choose a diode that can safely withstand the
current the circuit will have to provide, and also
the reverse bias voltage that will be applied to
it. Diodes are rated for maximum average
forward current, which, since the diode
conducts only half the time (positive
going half-cycles only), is roughly
1/2(Vav/RL), where Vav is the average These are the essential tools for future electrical
voltage and RL is the load resistance. The peak and electronics engineers only.
inverse voltage (PIV), or maximum repetitive
reverse voltage (VRRM) is the maximum 6 REFERENCES
reverse bias that the diode can withstand. For
the unfiltered rectifier, this is just the peak Diodes. Jimbo. Retrieved from
voltage. https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/d
iodes/real-diode-characteristics
n.d. Retrieved from
http://www.electrical4u.com/diode-
characteristics/
Tim F. Diodes and Diode Circuits. Retrieved
fromhttp://www.allaboutcircuits.com
/video-lectures/diode-characteristics-
circuits/

Figure 4. Oscilloscope connection into circuit

5 CONCLUSION

In this very difficult laboratory experiment, the

principle of diode operation was practically
understood. Initially its internal resistance, both
forward and bias was observed, then by
experimenting voltage and current change, the
relationship was defined.
The half-wave rectifier is used most often in
low-power applications because of their
Major disadvantages being. The output
amplitude is less than the input amplitude,
there is no output during the negative half
cycle so half the power is wasted and the
output is pulsed DC resulting in excessive
ripple.

By performing this experiment we know all this

stuff. Finally, the behavior of half wave
rectifier was analyzed with the help of
oscilloscope. My personal learning experience
was developed as well. I learnt working with
multimeter like I did in all the previous
experiments, DC board, and oscilloscope.