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
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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
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."
Energy & Green Tech
When someone thinks about knitting, they usually don't conjure up an image of sweaters and scarves made of yarn that can power watches and lights. But that's just what one group is reporting in ACS Nano. They have developed ...
Mar 28, 2018
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155
Engineering
Engineering researchers at Michigan State University have developed the first stretchable integrated circuit that is made entirely using an inkjet printer, raising the possibility of inexpensive mass production of smart fabric.
Feb 15, 2017
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25
Consumer & Gadgets
Anyone following tech stories from month to month will recognize LG Display as those tech people focused on "bendy" and "rollable" displays, bolstered by the company's aggressive attention toward novel organic light-emitting ...
Energy & Green Tech
Back in May, Steven Shankland in CNET said that, for the lighting business, "the next technology is coming: OLED (organic light-emitting diode) lighting. It replaces the small, bright dots of LEDs with sheets of light that ...
Hi Tech & Innovation
With all the new-version features and form-factor advances in smartphones, a common problem still remains, and that is power. Displays place a strain on battery life. Advances in the Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) screen ...
Engineering
Steel and aluminum are key players in supporting economic growth, yet materials joining them remain unexplored due to their fusion zones' brittleness. A new 3D printing method's fix may be a step toward a steel-aluminum hybrid ...
Nov 14, 2023
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22
Engineering
Fitness trackers, smartwatches and other wearable devices are popular ways to monitor and manage personal health. Researchers at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering are helping advance that technology by developing soft and ...
Oct 19, 2023
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18
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
