10.2 The Impatt Diode
In this section, we describe a type of microwave negative-conductance device that operates by a combination of carrier injection and transit-time effects. Diodes with simple p-n junction structure, or with variations on that structure, are biased to achieve tunneling or avalanche breakdown, with an a-c voltage superimposed on the d-c bias. The carriers generated by the injection process are swept through a drift region to the terminals of the device. We shall see that the a-c component of the resulting current can be approximately 180° out of phase with the applied voltage under proper conditions of bias and device configuration, giving rise to negative conductance and oscillation in a resonant circuit. Transit-time devices ...
Get Solid State Electronic Devices, 7th Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
