Junction Diodes and applications (Rectifier)

Introduction:
We have studied electronics 1 and we learn about diodes that the characteristic of an ideal diode
are a close match with those of a simple switch except for the important fact that an ideal diode can
conduct in only one direction, and the ideal diode is a short in the region of conduction and an open
circuit in the region of no conduction.

Semiconductors are materials with electrical conductivity intermediate between that of a conductor
and an insulator. In semiconducting materials thermal energy is enough to cause a number of
electrons to release from valance band to conduction band, in which they are relatively free.
Common semiconducting materials are silicon, germanium, gallium arsenide etc.
Semiconductors are classified as:
Intrinsic semiconductors: Pure semiconducting materials like crystalline form of germanium and
silicon, with equal concentration of electrons and holes.
Extrinsic semiconductors: Semiconducting material with the addition of suitable impurity atoms
through doping. 
Extrinsic semiconductors can be p-type or n-type depending on the impurities added to it. A p- type
semiconductor is formed when adding pentavalent impurities like phosphorus to an intrinsic
semiconductor. And a n- type semiconductor is formed when adding trivalent impurities like
aluminum to an intrinsic semiconductor.

Semiconductor diode is simply the combination of a p-type and an n-type material. It is formed by
doping half of the silicon crystal with trivalent impurity (p-type) and the other half with pentavalent
impurity (n-type). It has the characteristics of passing current in one direction only. If there is no
voltage is applied across the junction, electrons will diffuse through the junction to p - side and
holes will diffuse through the junction to n - side and they combine with each other. Thus the
acceptor atom near the p - side and donor atom near n – side are left unutilized and is called the
depletion layer. An electron field is generated by these uncovered charges which called the barrier
potential. This opposes further diffusion of carriers and is known as depletion region.
Biasing in general means the application of dc voltage across the terminals of a device for a
particular operation. Two types of biasing are possible in a p-n junction diode. They are:
1- Forward bias: occurs when the positive end of the diode is connected to the positive
terminal of the battery, and its negative end to the negative terminal of the battery. Here,
majority carriers from both sides move towards and cross the junction and current flows
through the junction. The size of the depletion layer decreases in forward biasing, and the
current will pass.
 2- Reverse bias: occurs when the positive end of the diode is connected to the negative
terminal of the battery, and its negative end to the positive terminal of the battery. Here,
majority carriers from both sides move away from the junction and thus no current flows
through the junction. A very small current will made at the junction due to the movement of
minority charge carriers across the junction.

Applications of the Diodes:

1- Half Wave Rectifiers:

An easy way to convert ac to pulsating dc is to simply allow half of the ac cycle to pass, while
blocking current to prevent it from flowing during the other half cycle. The figure to the right shows
the resulting output. Such circuits are known as half-wave rectifiers because they only work on half
of the incoming ac wave.
2- Full Wave Rectifiers:
The more common approach is to manipulate the incoming ac wave so that both halves are used to
cause output current to flow in the same direction. The resulting waveform is shown to the right.
Because these circuits operate on the entire incoming ac wave, they are known as full-wave
rectifiers.

Output of half wave rectifiers output of full wave rectifiers

Objectives:
1- Check the effective of the p-n junction of diodes.

2- Examine the rectifying effect of a semiconductor diode within a single pulse center tapped
circuit (Half wave Rectifier) with a multi-meter and oscilloscope.

3- Examine by help of the oscilloscope and multi-meter the characteristics of two-pulse bridge
(Full Wave Rectifier).

Instruments and Components:

1- Power supply DC and AC (generator).
2- oscilloscope.
3- Digital multi-meter (DMM).
4- Training Electronic Board.
5- Wires and connectors.
6- Four silicon Diodes.
7- Capacitors (10µF and 100µF).
8- Resistors (680Ω and 10KΩ).

Procedures:
Part one: Effects of the p-n-junction of diodes.
We talk about the diodes in the introduction. How the diode operates and turns off, and what
happen in all states of the connection of p-junction and n-junction in forward and reverse bias.

Examine the effect of the rectifier diode’s p-n-junction on the current flow in relation to the
applied voltage and its polarity (The tests for what we say before to confirm the speech by
practical work) by do the following steps:

1- Connect the circuit as this circuit

→→→→→→
2- Test the p-n junction diode in the forward configurations, we apply voltage
forward from 0 V to 0.75 and compute the current flow the diode and fill the
results in a Table as the following table:

UF(V) 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.65 0.7 0.75
IF(mA) 0 0 0 0.001 0.002 0.26 1.77 5.83 15.60 44.8
3- Now, test the p-n junction in the reverse configurations, and fill your results
in a table as the following table:

UR(V) 0 2.5 5 10 15 20 25 30
IR(mA) 0 0 0 0.00006 0.001 0.0013 0.002 0.0024

4- Plot voltage vs current in the graph from the previous tables as the
following graph:

50

40

30

20

10

0
-35 -30 -25 -20 -15 -10 -5 0 5
-10
50
45
40 IF(mA)
35
30
25
20
15 IF(mA)
10
5
0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8
 IR(mA)
0
-35 -30 -25 -20 -15 -10 -5 0
0
0 IR(mA)
0
0
0
0

Part two: single pulse center tapped circuits M1

If a semiconductor diode is integrated to a circuit, current flow is only possible at one polarity
of the applied voltage (bias direction). When polarity is reversed the blocking function is
effective and no current will flow. if AC voltage is applied to such a circuit, it is only conductive
at the half wave with the respective polarity the other half wave is blocked. Current within the
circuit will flow only in one direction.

And now we will test that as the following test, examine the rectifying effect of a
semiconductor diode within a single pulse center tapped circuit M1 with a multi-meter and an
oscilloscope by doing the following steps:

1- Set up the circuit as the following circuit without smoothing capacitor:

2- Measure the input voltageUE and the DC voltage Ud with the multi-meter and calculate
the ratio between Ud and UE.
3- Measure the input voltage UE and the DC voltage Ud with the oscilloscope and draw the
curve in a graph as the following graph:
 4- Determine by help of the oscilloscope picture the peak to peak value and the frequency
of the ripple UBr as the following picture from these values:

Note: Ripple is the AC portion of a pulsating DC voltage Ud.

Then connect the smoothing capacitor CG in parrallel to load resistance and repeat
steps 2,3,4.

Note: regard the polarity when connecting the electrolytic capacitors.

The following graph for 10µF capacitor when we connect it to the circuit as the
following circuit and graph:
The following graph for 100µF capacitor when we connect it to the circuit as the
following circuit and graph:

And fill the results that you get in this part in a table as the following table:

Single-pulse center point circuit M1

CG (µF) without 10 100
UE eff (V) 5
Ud (V) 1.99 5.62 5.77
Ud/UE 1.99/5=0.398 5.62/5=1.124 5.77/5=1.154

UBr ss (V) 6.3 0.960 13.5

fBr (Hz) 50 ///// /////
When we reverse the diode in the circuit we got the circuit and the graph as the
following but we have no smoothing capacitor:

Part three: Two-Pulse Bridge Circuit B2

At the single pulse center-tapped circuit M1 only a half wave of the AC voltage is used.
Disadvantage is the small portion of DC voltage with high ripple. This disadvantage is avoided in
the two-pulse bridge B2, as polarity of the opposed half-wace is changed and added to the DC
voltage.

The test for that is as the following:

Examine by help of the oscilloscope and multi-meter the characteristics of two-pulse bridge B2
by the following steps:

1- Set-up the circuit without smoothing capacitor as the following circuit:

2- Measure input voltage UE and DC voltage Ud with your multi-meter and determine the
ratio Ud.
3- Measure with the oscilloscope all the volatges UE to UE. And DC voltages Ud and draw the
curve that you get as the following graph:

4- Determine by help of the oscilloscope curve from the following values, to get the peak-
peak-value and the frequency of ripple voltages UBr:
Note: Ripple voltage is the portion of AC voltage within pulsating DC voltages Ud.

5- Then one by one connect the smoothing capacitors CG in parallel to the

load resistor RL and repeat steps 2,3,4.

Note: regard the polarity when connecting the electrolytic capacitors.

The following graph for 10µF capacitor when we connect it to the circuit as the
following circuit and graph:

The following graph for 100µF capacitor when we connect it to the circuit as the
following circuit and graph:

And fill the results that you get in this part in a table as the following table:

Single-pulse center point circuit M1

CG (µF) without 10 100
UE eff (V) 5
Ud (V) 3.593 5.39 5.42
Ud/UE 3.593/5=0.7186 5.39/5=1.078 5.42/5=1.084

UBr ss (V) 6.1 0.56 0.24

fBr (Hz) 100 ///// /////
Results/Questions:
We get the results in this experiment (values and graphs of connection and graphs
of characteristic equation (curves) and graphs of oscilloscope) and we put these
results through the procedures and we say about these results some information
but we will get more about some results that might be important.

In the forward-bias region the diode current increases exponentially with increase
in voltage across the diode

In the reverse-bias region the diode current is the very small reverse saturation
current until avalanche (breakdown) voltage is reached and current will flow in
the opposite direction through the diode.

First, in part one, we get a curve or a characteristic curve from the values of the
current vs voltage in two casses of bias, and we see that in forward bias the
current approximately will start flow (pass the diode) after the threshold voltage
or Knee voltage that is for silicon diode about (0.6-0.8)V. and we notice that in
reverse bias state the current is roughly zero so we can say as we learn that the
current in reverse bias will be zero after a point called breakdown voltage
(Avalanche voltage) that the diode will breakdown after that voltage and burn.

Second, in part two, we connect the circuit without capacitor and we get the graph and
we notice that the output will be in half of the period as the input roughly and the othe
half will be zero. The explaniation for that result that in forward bias the diode will be as
short circuit but will reduce the input voltage and go on but in reverse bias the diode
will be as open circuit so the current that will pass the resistor will be zero s the voltage
is zero also. But when we don’t use the capacitor the output voltage will be small
because that we don’t have any voltage in the second half of the period (as we see in
the results that we get in the table) comparison when we connect smoothing capacitor,
because the capacitor will make or save the voltage for the resistor in the time that the
diode will be open so that will make the resistor keep continue on the same voltage
roughly. We see that the frequency of the output signal is the same or equal the
frequency of the input signal.
Finally, in part three, we connect the circuit without capacitor and we get the
graph and we notice that the output will be continous of ripple waves as we see
because we have four diodes make the circuit to be work for all time. And when
we connect the capacitor for the circuit we get smooth ripple and get constant DC
voltage roughly. But in this part the the frequency of the output signal is the
double of the frequency of the input signal, because the in the positive part of the
input signal, two diodes will pass the current and have output signal and the other
two diodes will be open circuit and they don’t pass current so the output signal
will be zero, and in the negative part of the input signal will quite happen
opposite to the positive part and if you think about that you will notice that we
have two signal above each othe so we add the frequency to get a new frequency
to the new output signal.

1- What is the name of the voltage, when the diode gets conductive ?

Answer: Threshold voltage or Knee voltage.

2- What is the frequency of the ripple UBr ?

Answer: The frequency of the ripple UBr for half rectifier is the same as the
frequency of the source and in this experiment the frequency is 50Hz.

3- What happens if the diode in circuit of the part two is reversed in polarity ?

Amswer: We don’t do this step in this experiment, but we can get that
theoritcaly but we get that same as in nutural case, so the answer is nothing
change or happen.

4- At which connector of the diode is the plus pole of the obtained DC voltage
Ud ?

Answer: the connection of the diode to get DC voltage at Ud should be in

series with the load.
 5- State the value of blocking voltage affecting the diode with smoothing
capacitor CG ?

Answer: we can determine the blocking voltage affecting the diode with
smoothing by the following, the threshold voltage often will be 0.65 for silicon
roughly so the the capacitor will charge (the voltage of the source-0.65)only

6- What influence does the smoothing capacitor have on the peak-peak-value

of the ripple ?

Answer: the smoothing capacitor’s task is to make the wave like DC

component to have constant voltage and to make the ripple smooth to get
peak-peak-value more efficency and be more effective.

7- What is the ratio between DC voltage Ud and the applied effective input
voltage UE (without smoothing capacitor) ?

Answer: The ratio is 3.593/5=0.7186

8- What is the frequency of the ripple volatge UBr ?

Answer: The frequency of the ripple voltage UBr for the bridge rectifier is to be
the double of the frequency of the input signal and the answer for this part is
fBr=2*50=100Hz.

Conclusion:
In this experiment, we learn about the applications of the diode and how to get
DC voltage from AC voltage as we say in procedures and explains that in results
We learned from this experience many important things that help us in our
graduation projects, and before we finish this report we should learn this course
carefully, because the Evolution in the future is built on this basis.