Shockley diode equation

The Shockley diode equation or the "diode law", named after transistor co-inventor William Shockley of Bell Telephone Laboratories, gives the I–V (current-voltage) characteristic of an idealized diode in either forward or reverse bias (applied voltage):
where
The equation is called the "Shockley ideal diode equation" when "n", the ideality factor, is set equal to 1. The ideality factor "n" typically varies from 1 to 2 (though can in some cases be higher), depending on the fabrication process and semiconductor material and is set equal to 1 for the case of an "ideal" diode (thus the n is sometimes omitted). The ideality factor was added to account for imperfect junctions as observed in real transistors. The factor mainly accounts for carrier recombination as the charge carriers cross the depletion region.
The thermal voltage "V"T is approximately 25.8563mV at . At an arbitrary temperature, it is a known constant defined by:
where "k" is the Boltzmann constant, "T" is the absolute temperature of the p–n junction, and "q" is the magnitude of charge of an electron (the elementary charge).
The reverse saturation current, "I"S, is not constant for a given device, but varies with temperature; usually more significantly than "V"T, so that "V"D typically decreases as "T" increases.
The Shockley diode equation doesn't describe the "leveling off" of the I–V curve at high forward bias due to internal resistance. This can be taken into account by adding a resistance in series.
Under "reverse bias" (when the n side is put at a more positive voltage than the p side) the exponential term in the diode equation is near zero and the current is near a constant (negative) reverse current value of −"IS". The reverse "breakdown region" is not modeled by the Shockley diode equation.
For even rather small "forward bias" voltages the exponential is very large, since the thermal voltage is very small in comparison. The subtracted '1' in the diode equation is then negligible and the forward diode current can be approximated by
The use of the diode equation in circuit problems is illustrated in the article on diode modeling.
Derivation.
Shockley derives an equation for the voltage across a p-n junction in a long article published in 1949. Later he gives a corresponding equation for current as a function of voltage under additional assumptions, which is the equation we call the Shockley ideal diode equation. He calls it "a theoretical rectification formula giving the maximum rectification", with a footnote referencing a paper by Carl Wagner, "Physikalische Zeitschrift" 32, pp. 641–645 (1931).
To derive his equation for the voltage, Shockley argues that the total voltage drop can be divided into three parts:
He shows that the first and the third of these can be expressed as a resistance times the current, "R1I". As for the second, the difference between the quasi-Fermi levels at the junction, he says that we can estimate the current flowing through the diode from this difference. He points out that the current at the p terminal is all holes, whereas at the n terminal it is all electrons, and the sum of these two is the constant total current. So the total current is equal to the decrease in hole current from one side of the diode to the other. This decrease is due to an excess of recombination of electron-hole pairs over generation of electron-hole pairs. The rate of recombination is equal to the rate of generation when at equilibrium, that is, when the two quasi-Fermi levels are equal. But when the quasi-Fermi levels are not equal, then the recombination rate is formula_4 times the rate of generation. We then assume that most of the excess recombination (or decrease in hole current) takes place in a layer going by one hole diffusion length ("Lp") into the n material and one electron diffusion length ("Ln") into the p material, and that the difference between the quasi-Fermi levels is constant in this layer at "VJ". Then we find that the total current, or the drop in hole current, is
where
and "g" is the generation rate. We can solve for formula_7 in terms of formula_8:
and the total voltage drop is then
When we assume that formula_11 is small, we obtain formula_12 and the Shockley ideal diode equation.
The small current that flows under high reverse bias is then the result of thermal generation of electron-hole pairs in the layer. The electrons then flow to the n terminal and the holes to the p terminal. The concentrations of electrons and holes in the layer is so small that recombination there is negligible.
In 1950, Shockley and coworkers published a short article describing a germanium diode that closely followed the ideal equation.
In 1954, Bill Pfann and W. van Roosbroek (who were also of Bell Telephone Laboratories) reported that while Shockley's equation was applicable to certain germanium junctions, for many silicon junctions the current (under appreciable forward bias) was proportional to formula_13 with having a value as high as 2 or 3. This is the "ideality factor" called "n" above.
In 1981, Alexis de Vos and Herman Pauwels showed that a more careful analysis of the quantum mechanics of a junction, under certain assumptions, gives a current versus voltage characteristic of the form
in which is the cross-sectional area of the junction and is the number of in-coming photons per unit area, per unit time, with energy over the band-gap energy, and is out-going photons, given by
Where the lower limit is described later. Although this analysis was done for photovoltaic cells under illumination, it applies also when the illumination is simply background thermal radiation. It gives a more rigorous form of expression for ideal diodes in general, except that it assumes that the cell is thick enough that it can produce this flux of photons. When the illumination is just background thermal radiation, the characteristic is
Note that, in contrast to the Shockley law, the current goes to infinity as the voltage goes to the gap voltage . This of course would require an infinite thickness to provide an infinite amount of recombination.