Transition and Diffusion capacitance in P-N junction diode

Prajakta Kelapure

Prajakta Kelapure

@prajakta-TzvYXq Oct 24, 2024
Transition and Diffusion capacitance

Transition capacitances:

1. When P-N junction is reverse biased the depletion region act as an insulator or as a dielectric medium and the p-type an N-type region have low resistance and act as the plates.

2. Thus this P-N junction can be considered as a parallel plate capacitor.

3. This junction capacitance is called as space charge capacitance or transition capacitance and is denoted as CT .

4. Since reverse bias causes the majority charge carriers to move away from the junction , so the thickness of the depletion region denoted as W increases with the increase in reverse bias voltage.

5. This incremental capacitance CT may be defined as

CT = dQ/dV,

Where dQ is the increase in charge and dV is the change or increase in voltage.

6. The depletion region increases with the increase in reverse bias potential the resulting transition capacitance decreases.

7. The formula for transition capacitance is given as CT = Aε/W, where A is the cross sectional area of the region, and W is the width.

Diffusion capacitance:

1. When the junction is forward biased, a capacitance comes into play , that is known as diffusion capacitance denoted as CD. It is much greater than the transition capacitance.

2. During forward biased the potential barrier is reduced. The charge carriers moves away from the junction and recombine.

3. The density of the charge carriers is high near the junction and reduces or decays as the distance increases.

4. Thus in this case charge is stored on both side of the junction and varies with the applied potential. So as per definition change in charge with respect to applied voltage results in capacitance which here is called as diffusion capacitance.

5. The formula for diffusion capacitance is CD = τID / ηVT , where τ is the mean life time of the charge carrier, ID is the diode current and VT is the applied forward voltage, and η is generation recombination factor.

6. The diffusion capacitance is directly proportional to the diode current.

7. In forward biased CD >> CT . And thus CT can be neglected.

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  • DefyTheInstitution

    DefyTheInstitution

    @defytheinstitution-kgiFw9 Sep 4, 2015

    Thank you, that was awesome!
  • Ankita Katdare

    Ankita Katdare

    @abrakadabra Sep 7, 2015

    #-Link-Snipped-# It's great to know that the students are finding this so useful and informative. You should start writing tutorials again. 👍
  • Akash Sharma

    Akash Sharma

    @akash-gqlztI Oct 18, 2016

    This is good.very useful .
  • Jafer hameed

    Jafer hameed

    @jafer-hameed-6sYzFp Sep 21, 2017

    Great step forward
    Like to know how can I post questions
  • Jino John

    Jino John

    @jino-p9JJBi Jul 16, 2018

    It's too good .l learned a lot from this

  • Prasanth Prince

    Prasanth Prince

    @prasanth-lOtC17 Nov 23, 2018

    In diffusion capacitance 2nd point there is a mistake move away from

  • Prasanth Prince

    Prasanth Prince

    @prasanth-lOtC17 Nov 23, 2018

    It is towards the junction