01.09.2016 Views

1445326735900-0

Create successful ePaper yourself

Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.

Diodes I<br />

battery voltage of 9 V simply isn’t high enough to cause<br />

breakdown.<br />

Some special diodes, on the other hand, are purposefully<br />

manufactured to have a low breakdown voltage, and you can<br />

use one of them to study and plot your own complete diode<br />

characteristic. Such diodes are named after the American<br />

scientist, Zener, who was one of the first people to study<br />

electronic breakdown. The zener diode you are going to use<br />

is rated at 3V0 which of course means that its breakdown occurs<br />

at 3 V which is below the battery voltage and is therefore<br />

plottable in the same sort of experiment as the last one. The<br />

symbol for a zener diode, incidentally, is shown in Figure<br />

6.15.<br />

Figure 6.15<br />

The circuit symbol for a zener diode<br />

Hint:<br />

The way to remember the zener diode circuit symbol is to note that<br />

the bent line representing its cathode corresponds to the electronics<br />

breakdown.<br />

Procedure is more or less the same as before. The circuit is<br />

shown in Figure 6.16 where the zener diode is shown forward<br />

biased. Complete Table 6.5 with the circuit as shown, then turn<br />

139

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!