Transition and Diffusion capacitance in P-N junction diode

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.

Replies

  • DefyTheInstitution
    DefyTheInstitution
    Thank you, that was awesome!
  • Ankita Katdare
    Ankita Katdare
    #-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
    This is good.very useful .
  • Jafer hameed
    Jafer hameed
    Great step forward
    Like to know how can I post questions
  • Jino John
    Jino John

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

  • Prasanth Prince
    Prasanth Prince

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

  • Prasanth Prince
    Prasanth Prince

    It is towards the junction

You are reading an archived discussion.

Related Posts

PS4's scored one more point over XBOX ONE today as it rolled out the latest system software update version 1.75. The latest firmware adds Blu-Ray 3D video support to the...
Quote: Popeye always made spinach look so good, didn’t he? The leafy vegetable gave Popeye super strength, but it now holds the promise of a different power for a group...
can any one please explain the use of RC ladder in above circuit...?
Hanwha Eagles, a Korean baseball team has been going through tough times. The team which has lost 400 matches in the past five years finds it difficult to get spectators...
In the last 2 months, I heard at least 3-4 cases of my friends and family members, who are engineers leaving their IT jobs after getting frustrated or having hit...