Leakage Current In Pn Diode

The leakage current of diode is the current that the diode will leak when a reverse voltage is applied to it. When a semiconductor device is reverse biased it should not conduct any current however due to an increased barrier potential the free electrons on the p side are dragged to the batterys positive terminal while holes on the n side are dragged to the batterys negative terminal.

Junction Leakage Current Degradation Under High Temperature

Working Of Pn Junction Diode With Biasing Characteristics

Pn Junction Diode And Diode Characteristics

Even though diodes are one way devices and they are only supposed to conduct current through them when they receive forward voltage positive voltage to the anode.

Leakage current in pn diode. Generally this condition is required to restrict the current carrier accumulation near the junction. Reverse leakage current in a semiconductor device is the current from that semiconductor device when the device is reverse biased. The is flows in the reverse bias condition of the diode is called reverse saturation current.

This recombination can occur within the quasi neutral regions within the depletion region or at the metal semiconductor ohmic contacts. The current in a p n diode is due to carrier recombination or generation somewhere within the p n diode structure. An important conduction limitation of pn junction diode is leakage current.

When a diode is reverse biased the width of the depletion region increases. Under forward bias the diode current is due to recombination. In the reverse direction the diode conducts a nonzero leakage current exaggerated by a smaller scale in the figure and at a sufficiently large reverse voltage below the breakdown voltage the current increases very rapidly with more negative reverse voltages.

In a pn junction diode the reverse saturation current is due to the diffusive flow of minority electrons from the p side to the n side and the minority holes from the n side to the p side. Semiconductor devices leakage current.