Paper detail

Measurements and analysis of current-voltage characteristic of a pn diode for an undergraduate physics laboratory

We show that in a simple experiment at undergraduate level, suitable to be performed in classes of science and engineering students, it is possible to test accurately, on a popular 1N4148 p-n diode, the range of the junction currents where the Shockley equation model can be considered satisfactory. The experiment benefits from a system of temperature control and data collection driven in a LabVIEW environment. With these tools a large quantity of data can be recorded in the temporal frame of a lab session. Significant deviations of the experimental I-V with respect to the ideal behaviour curve predicted by the Shockley equation are observed, both at low and high current. A better agreement over the entire range is obtained introducing, as is customary, a four parameters model, including a parallel and a series resistance. A new iterative fitting procedure is presented which treats the I-V data of different regimes on the same level, and allows a simultaneous determination of the four parameters for each temperature selected. Moreover, the knowledge of the temperature dependence of saturation current is used to estimate the energy gap of silicon. The connection of a macroscopic measure with a microscopic quantity is another valuable feature of this experiment, from an educational point of view.