Electronic Devices

UESTC 3002

Block 2: Lecture 2.3

pn junction-2
Dr. Sajjad Hussain
Assistant Professor
[email protected]

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 Pn junction
• Current flows freely in the p to n direction when the p region has a
positive external voltage bias relative to n (forward bias and forward
current).
• Virtually no current flows when p is made negative relative to n
(reverse bias and reverse current).
• This asymmetry of the current flow makes the p-n junction diode very
useful as a rectifier.
• While rectification is an important application, it is only the beginning
of a host of uses for the biased junction.
• Biased pn junctions can be used as voltage-variable capacitors,
photocells, light emitters, and many more devices which are basic to
modern electronics.
• Two or more junctions can be used to form transistors and controlled
switches.
 Biasing Conditions
Total three biasing conditions for the pn junction, and this is based on the
voltage applied:

• Zero bias: No external voltage is applied to the pn junction.

• Forward bias: The positive terminal of the voltage potential is
connected to the p-type while the negative terminal is connected to the
n-type.
• Reverse bias: The negative terminal of the voltage potential is
connected to the p-type and the positive is connected to the n-type.
 Forward Bias
• In forward biased, the built-in electric field at the pn junction and the
applied electric field are in opposite directions.
• This results in a less resistive and thinner depletion region.
• The depletion region resistance becomes negligible when the applied
voltage is large.
• At the voltage > built-in potential, the resistance of the depletion
region becomes negligible, and the current flows.
 Forward Bias
• A battery is connected across a pn junction so that the +ive terminal is
attached to p-side and the -ive terminal to n-side (Forward-biased).
• Regions outside the depletion width have high conductivities due to
plenty of majority carriers in the bulk, in comparison with the depletion
region in which there are mainly immobile ions.
• The applied voltage drops mostly across the depletion width W.
Negative polarity of the supply will reduce the potential barrier Vo by V.
• The applied voltage effectively reduces the built-in potential and hence
the built-in field, which acts against diffusion.

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 Forward Bias: Diffusion Current

(a) (b)
Forward-biased pn junction and the injection of minority carriers. (a) Carrier concentration profiles across the device
under forward bias. (b) The potential energy with and without an applied bias. W is the width of the SCL with forward
bias.
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 Forward Bias: Recombination and total current
• The applied voltage effectively reduces the built-in potential and hence the
built-in field, which acts against diffusion.
• Consequently many holes can now diffuse across the depletion region and
enter the n-side. This results in the injection of excess minority carriers,
holes, into the n-region.
• Similarly, excess electrons can now diffuse toward the p-side and enter this
region and thereby become injected minority carriers.
• Applied voltage V determines the amount of excess holes diffusing and
arriving at the n-region. (law of the junction)

Law of the junction

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 Reverse Bias
• When the p-type is connected to the battery’s negative terminal and
the n-type is connected to the positive side, the pn junction is reverse
biased.
• In this case, the built-in electric field and the applied electric field are
in the same direction.
• When the two fields are added, the resultant electric field is in the
same direction as the built-in electric field, creating a more resistive,
thicker depletion region.

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 Reverse Bias

Reverse-biased pn junction. Minority carrier profiles and the origin of the reverse current.

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 Reverse Bias
• The space charge layer (SCL), becomes wider.
• The -ive terminal will attract the holes in the p-side to move away
from the SCL, which results in more exposed negative acceptor ions
and thus a wider SCL.
• Similarly, the +ive terminal will attract electrons away from the SCL,
which exposes more positively charged donors.
• The movement of electrons in the n-region toward the +ive battery
terminal cannot be sustained because there is no electron supply to
this n-side.
• The p-side cannot supply electrons to the n-side because it has
almost none. However, there is a small reverse current due to the
thermal generation of electron–hole pairs (EHPs) in the SCL.
• This minority carrier diffusion current is called the Shockley model.
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I-V Characteristics of P-N Junction

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 Qualitative Description of Current Flow at a Junction
• Applied voltage bias V appears across the transition region of the junction rather than in the
neutral n and p regions.

• V is positive when the external bias is positive on the p side relative to the n side.

• The electrostatic potential barrier at the junction is lowered by a forward bias Vf from the
equilibrium contact potential V0 to the smaller value V0 - Vf . (forward bias raises the
electrostatic potential on the p side)

• For a reverse bias (V = -Vr) the opposite occurs; the electrostatic potential of the p side is
depressed relative to the n side, and the potential barrier at the junction becomes larger (V0 +
Vr).

• In forward bias, the applied electric field opposes the built-in field. Whereas, with reverse bias
the field at the junction is increased by the applied field, which is in the same direction as the
equilibrium field.

• The change in electric field at the junction calls for a change in W, the width W to decrease
under forward bias and to increase under reverse bias.
 Qualitative Description of Current Flow at a Junction

The penetration of the transition region into the n and p materials are;

• If V0 is replaced by the new barrier height* V0 – V, one can use the above equation to calculate
W, xn0 and xp0 .
• The height of the electron energy barrier is simply the electronic charge q times the height of
the electrostatic potential barrier.
• Thus the bands are separated less [q(V0 - Vf)] under forward bias than at equilibrium, and
more [q(V0 + Vr)] under reverse bias.
*With bias applied to the junction, the 0 in the subscripts of xn0 and xp0 does not imply equilibrium. Instead, it
signifies the origin of a new set of coordinates, xn = 0 and xp = 0.
 Qualitative Description of Current Flow at a Junction
• The diffusion current is composed of majority carrier electrons on n side overcoming the
potential energy barrier to diffuse to p side, and holes overcoming their barrier from p to n.

• Forward bias; the barrier is lowered (to V0-Vf), and more electrons in the n-side conduction
band have sufficient energy to diffuse from n to p over the smaller barrier. Therefore, the
electron diffusion current can be quite large with forward bias.

• Similarly, more holes can diffuse from p to n under forward bias because of the lowered
barrier.

• Reverse bias; the barrier becomes so large (V0 + Vr) that virtually no electrons in the n-side
conduction band or holes in the p-side valence band have enough energy to surmount it.
Therefore, the diffusion current is usually negligible for reverse bias.

• The electron drift current does not depend on how fast an individual electron is swept from p
to n, but rather on how many electrons are swept down the barrier per second, similarly for
hole drift current.

• Drift component of current is generated by thermal excitation of EHPs. The total current
crossing the junction is composed of the sum of the diffusion and drift components.
 Qualitative Description of Current Flow at a Junction
• The net current crossing the junction is zero at
equilibrium, since the drift and diffusion
components cancel for each type of carrier.

• Reverse bias: both diffusion components are

negligible because of the large barrier at the
junction, and the only current is the relatively small
generation current from n to p.

• The resulting current due to drift of generated

carriers across the junction is commonly called the
generation current since its magnitude depends
entirely on the rate of generation of EHPs

Figure Effects of a bias at a p-n junction; transition region width

and electric field, electrostatic potential, energy band diagram,
and particle flow and current directions within W for (a)
equilibrium, (b) forward bias, and (c) reverse bias.
 Qualitative Description of Current Flow at a Junction
• The only current flowing in this p-n junction diode for -ive V is the small current I(gen.) due to
carriers generated in the transition region or minority carriers which diffuse to the junction
and are collected.
• The current at V = 0 (equilibrium) is zero since the generation and diffusion currents cancel:

• An applied forward bias V = Vf increases the probability that a carrier can diffuse across the
junction, by the factor exp (qVf/kT).

In last Eq. the applied voltage V can be positive or negative,

V = Vf or V = -Vr.

• When V is +ive and > a few kT/q (kT/q = 0.0259 V at room

temperature), the exponential term is much greater than
unity. The current thus increases exponentially with
forward bias.
 Qualitative Description of Current Flow at a Junction
• When V is -ive (reverse bias), the exponential term approaches zero and the current is -I0,
which is in the n to p (negative) direction. This negative generation current is also called the
reverse saturation current.

• Current flows relatively freely in the forward direction of the diode, but almost no current
flows in the reverse direction.
• The minority carrier concentration on each side of a p-n junction to vary with the applied bias
because of variations in the diffusion of carriers across the junction. The equilibrium ratio of
hole concentrations on each side is:

Eq. (a)

becomes with bias Eq. (b)

• The relative change in majority carrier concentration can be assumed to vary only slightly with
bias compared with equilibrium values. With this we can write the ratio of Eq. (a) to (b) as

Eq. (c)
Qualitative Description of Current Flow at a Junction
• With forward bias, Eq. (c) suggests a greatly increased minority carrier hole concentration at
the edge of the transition region on the n side p(xn0) than was the case at equilibrium.
• Conversely, the hole concentration p(xn0) under reverse bias (V negative) is reduced below
the equilibrium value pn.
• The exponential increase of the hole concentration at xn0 with forward bias is an example of
minority carrier injection.

Figure Forward-biased junction: (a) minority carrier distributions on the two sides of the transition region and definitions
of distances xn and xp measured from the transition region edges; (b) variation of the quasi-Fermi levels with position.
 Carrier Injection
We can easily calculate the excess hole concentration Δpn at the edge of the transition
region xn0 by subtracting the equilibrium hole concentration from Eq. c

and similarly for excess electrons on the p side,

We can write the diffusion equation for each side of the junction and solve for the
distributions of excess carriers (𝛿n and 𝛿p) assuming long p and n regions:
The hole diffusion current at any point xn in the n material can be calculated

Eq. (d)

The hole diffusion current at each position xn is proportional to the excess hole concentration at
that point.
The total hole current injected into the n material at the junction can be obtained simply by
evaluating Eq. (d) at xn0
 Carrier Injection
By a similar analysis, the injection of electrons into the p material leads to an electron current
at the junction of

The minus sign in Eq. above means that the electron current is opposite to the xp-direction; that
is, the true direction of In is in the +x-direction, adding to Ip in the total current.
If we neglect recombination in the transition region, which is known as the Shockley ideal diode
approximation, we can consider that each injected electron reaching -xp0 must pass through xn0.

Thus the total diode current I at xn0 can be calculated as the sum of Ip(xn = 0) and -In(xp = 0).

If we take the +x-direction as the reference direction for the total current I, we must use a
minus sign with In(xp) to account for the fact that xp is defined in the –x-direction:

diode equation
 Carrier Injection
The diode equation describes the total current through the diode for either forward or reverse
bias.
We can calculate the current for reverse bias by letting V = -Vr:

If Vr is > a few kT/q, the total current is just the reverse saturation current:

An implication of Diode equation is that the total current at the junction is dominated by
injection of carriers from the more heavily doped side into the side with lesser doping.

For example, if the p material is very heavily doped and the n region is lightly doped, the
minority carrier concentration on the p side (np) is negligible compared with the minority
carrier concentration on the n side (pn).

In forward bias in the depletion region we thus get

 Carrier Injection

Figure Two methods for calculating junction current from the excess minority carrier distributions: (a) diffusion currents at the
edges of the transition region; (b) charge in the distributions divided by the minority carrier lifetimes; (c) the diode equation.
 Carrier Injection
• Calculation of the majority carrier currents in the two neutral regions is simple, once we have
found the minority carrier current.
• Since the total current I must be constant throughout the device, the majority carrier
component of current at any point is just the difference between I and the minority
component.

Figure Electron and hole components of current in a forward-biased p-n junction. In this example, we have a higher
injected minority hole current on the n side than electron current on the p side because we have a lower n doping than p
doping.
 Carrier Injection
If a -ive value of V is introduced. V = -Vr (p
negatively biased with respect to n), we can
approximate below Eq.

as

and similarly

Thus for a reverse bias of more than a few

tenths of a volt, the minority carrier
concentration at each edge of the transition
region becomes essentially zero as the excess
concentration approaches the negative of the
equilibrium concentration.

Figure Reverse-biased p-n junction: (a) minority carrier distributions near the reverse-biased junction; (b) variation of the
quasi-Fermi levels.

Recommended reading: 5.3 Forward- and Reverse-Biased Junctions; Steady State Conditions; solid state Electronic Devices 7E by Ben Streetman
 Reverse Breakdown
• The pn junction breaks down either by the Avalanche or Zener breakdown
mechanisms, which lead to large reverse currents.
• In the V = −Vbr region, the reverse current increases dramatically with the
reverse bias.
• If unlimited, the large reverse current will increase the power dissipated, which
raises the temperature of the device, which leads to a further increase in the
reverse current and so on.
• If the temperature does not burn out the device, for example, by melting the
contacts, then the breakdown is recoverable.
• If the current is limited by an external resistance to a value within the power
dissipation specifications, then there is no reason why the device cannot
operate under breakdown conditions.

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 Avalanche Breakdown
• The field in the SCL can become so large (increase of reverse bias) that an
electron drifting in this region can gain sufficient KE to impact on a Si atom
and ionize it, or rupture a Si–Si bond.

• The phenomenon by which a drifting electron gains sufficient energy from

the field to ionize a host crystal atom by bombardment is termed impact
ionization.

• The EHPs generated by impact ionization themselves can now be

accelerated by the field and will themselves give rise to further EHPs by
ionizing collisions and so on, leading to an avalanche effect.

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 Zener Breakdown
• Heavily doped pn junctions, (narrow W, large
electric fields)

• For a sufficient reverse bias (typically <10 V), Ec

on the n-side may be lowered to be below Ev on
the p-side.

• This means that electrons at the top of the VB in

the p-side are now at the same energy level as
the empty states in the CB in the n-side.

• As the separation between the VB and CB

narrows, a (<W), electrons easily tunnel from the
VB in the p-side to the CB in the n-side, which
leads to a current (Zener effect).

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Zener Diode
 Class Exercise

Solution:
Class Exercise - 2
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