The PN Diode

Summary

The discovery of the rectifier effect presented by a PN junction by Russell Ohlin, 1940, was the founding act of William Shockley's 1949 invention of the bipolar transistor, a component consisting of two PN diodes placed side by side. The PN diode is a current rectifier for low and high currents up to thousands of amperes. Due to its high switching speed, it is a component of logic circuits in computers and so‐called electronic telephone exchanges. The PN diode is also one of the basic structures of microelectronics components: NPN bipolar transistors, memories and solar cells. This chapter presents: the discovery of the PN diode; the PN diode operation; the PN diode functions; the physical basis of PN diode operation; the effect of impurities on PN diode characteristics; the development of PN diodes; and the purification, doping and manufacturing processes for electronic silicon and germanium single crystals.