Diodes

Section 9.3 is the heart of the chapter's device physics: it explains how joining a p-type and an n-type crystal creates a p-n junction with a self-built depletion region and barrier potential, how the resulting p-n junction diode conducts under forward bias and blocks under reverse bias, how that asymmetry is exploited for AC-to-DC rectification, how a reverse-biased junction eventually breaks down (deliberately, in the Zener diode), and how three optoelectronic cousins of the ordinary diode -- the …