Engineering
Engineering researchers have created new high-power electronic devices that are more energy efficient than previous technologies. The devices are made possible by a unique technique for "doping" gallium nitride (GaN) in a ...
Sep 6, 2022
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232
Electronics & Semiconductors
Scientists from Sandia National Laboratories have announced a tiny, electronic device that can shunt excess electricity within a few billionths of a second while operating at a record-breaking 6,400 volts—a significant ...
Mar 15, 2022
1
547
Electronics & Semiconductors
Climate change and its consequences are becoming increasingly obvious, and solar cells that convert the sun's energy into electricity will play a key role in the world's future energy supply.
Oct 26, 2021
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532
Electronics & Semiconductors
Researchers at Linköping University, together with colleagues in China, have developed a tiny unit that is both an optical transmitter and a receiver. "This is highly significant for the miniaturisation of optoelectronic ...
Apr 3, 2020
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3
Telecom
The Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), Fujitsu Limited, and the Tokyo Metropolitan University announced that they developed a highly sensitive rectifying element in the form of a nanowire backward diode, which can ...
Sep 26, 2019
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1
Engineering
UV light inactivates germs in drinking water. Until now, the disinfection process relied on mercury-vapor lamps, which emit light in the UV spectrum. However, mercury is a heavy metal that affects human health and the environment. ...
Aug 2, 2019
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0
Energy & Green Tech
The future of faster, more efficient information processing may come down to light rather than electricity. Mark Lawrence, a postdoctoral scholar in materials science and engineering at Stanford, has moved a step closer to ...
Jul 24, 2019
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13
Engineering
Imagine a world where smartphones, laptops, wearables, and other electronics are powered without batteries. Researchers from MIT and elsewhere have taken a step in that direction, with the first fully flexible device that ...
Jan 28, 2019
2
1207
Consumer & Gadgets
Laptops with folding screens? Never say never when the visionaries at Samsung get excited far beyond words, such as "Signing off, see you in the morning."
Engineering
The latest development in textiles and fibers is a kind of soft hardware that you can wear: cloth that has electronic devices built right into it.
Aug 8, 2018
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293
In electronics, a diode is a two-terminal device (thermionic diodes may also have one or two ancillary terminals for a heater).
Diodes have two active electrodes between which the signal of interest may flow, and most are used for their unidirectional electric current property. The varicap diode is used as an electrically adjustable capacitor.
The unidirectionality most diodes exhibit is sometimes generically called the rectifying property. The most common function of a diode is to allow an electric current in one direction (called the forward biased condition) and to block the current in the opposite direction (the reverse biased condition). Thus, the diode can be thought of as an electronic version of a check valve.
Real diodes do not display such a perfect on-off directionality but have a more complex non-linear electrical characteristic, which depends on the particular type of diode technology. Diodes also have many other functions in which they are not designed to operate in this on-off manner.
Early diodes included “cat’s whisker” crystals and vacuum tube devices (also called thermionic valves). Today most diodes are made of silicon, but other semiconductors such a germanium are sometimes used.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
