Diodes - A Practical Guide

From Avalanche to Zener, we have diodes for you today! Learn how diodes work and how to use them in your circuits. Laser Diodes included!

Diodes have been around for a very long time. They were the first tube devices and the first semiconductors, and today, there are many different types of diodes for many applications.

We’ll look at several types of diodes today. We’ll see how they are used and perform a few experiments with them. Not only that, but we will also take out a few Laser diodes and play around with them.

Here is a list of the diodes we will be learning about:

Rectifier diodes
Switching Diodes
SCRs (Silicon Controller Rectifiers)
TRIACs
DIACs and SIDACs
Zener Diodes
Avalanche Diodes
Tunnel Diodes (Esaki Diodes)
Varactor Diodes (Varicap Diodes)
Schottky Diodes
PIN Diodes
Shockley Diodes
Photodiodes
LASCRs
Opto-TRIACs
LEDs
Laser Diodes

That's a lot of diodes, and each one is unique!

Here is the Table of Contents for today's video:

00:00 - Introduction
01:30 - Understanding Diodes
07:31 - Bridge Rectifier
08:50 - Bridge Rectifier Filter Experiment
11:58 - SCRs - TRIACs - DIACs
14:57 - SCR Latching Experiment
17:27 - Zener Diodes
19:05 - Zener "Voltmeter" Experiment
23:53 - Exotic Diodes
28:35 - Producing & Detecting Light with Diodes
33:27 - LASER Diode Experiments
38:11 - Conclusion

Hope you enjoy the video!

Bill

[JulioSalim]

Very few people would make me interested in investing 40 minutes of my time on diodes. You are the best!!! Thank you!!!

[markvanhorne]

As a retired engineer, these videos are great therapy.

[TheSlyMouse]

Love your presentation style always high quality

[jedediahreaver]

if there is someone eligible for best electronic prize, it must be you. The level of quality production is just unmatched. Kudos Drone Bot

[whitneydesignlabs]

My initial thought when I saw the title of this video, was that I already knew about diodes... But boy was I wrong. I learned a ton from this video. Thanks, Bill for such a thorough explanation including the historical back ground. As always, Bill's educational videos are of the highest quality, and interesting too!

[mrmfloy]

Looking forward to episode of Lasers. Thanks a bunch.

[BobHolowenko]

Ive been helping people learn electronic theory for a decade and hope to be 1/10th the teacher you are. Excellent work sir. So very well presented with perfect visualizations, graphics, graphs, tables, etc.

[DubloAirfix]

Amazing, this afternoon I made my first linear power supply from an old 12v transformer (based on one of your earlier videos) and observed the low voltage after the bridge rectifier and then the higher voltage after the capacitor and thought ‘what the heck?’ Went to look it up,
and the computer goes bing, notification of this video explaining the whole thing. Great timing! Many thanks. Such a good teacher. Salut from France

[drivera]

I'm glad you talked about the Zener diodes. I was using one as over-undervoltage protection for a single-supply 5V op-amp connected to a piezo in case it was bumped and created a >40V spike and it stayed within the op-amp's max range. Before that, I had to replace the op-amp every few months because someone where I was working would repeatedly cause voltage spikes

[bikkies]

Way back in my teens (40 years ago) SCRs were my favourite discrete component. They still are. I never really understood diacs and triacs, but that's part of a bigger comprehension problem I have with AC circuits. SCRs, though, I was able to understand at a basic operational level. Their latching behaviour never ceases to amaze me. Theyre like a fidget toy. I could easily play around with them all day, triggering them and then giggling at myself like a giddy 14 year old, over the ease with which I can be impressed. They're little lumps of wirebound glory. People tell me they work by semiconductor this and PN junction that, but I am pretty sure they're actually driven by invisible magic.

[Mrdibzahab]

Never knew there are some many exotic diodes, thanks!

[Richardj]

Thanks always nice to learn things anew. You have the neatness bench I've ever seen. Wish I could make mine look that good. Ah well I still play with the same tools. 😄

[chrisrudy]

Thank you! I was engrossed for the entire video. I'm subscribed!

[nickepps]

Brilliant video, thank you for your efforts.

[dcchillin]

i spent a semester struggling to undersand diodes and this video hepled so much in under an hour

[smidjepeter]

always interesting to experience the components again in a well explained video!!
your videos are very well explained, thank you!!

[gregorymccoy]

Great presentation! The care and effort is evident in all your videos. Now I have a clue bout all my 74LS series outputs ...TTL chips.

[SouravTechLabs]

Amazingly detailed video about diodes!
Thanks for discussing about diodes like SIDAC and Shockley diodes!

BTW, my favourite diodes are TVS Diodes (one of the avalanche diodes), DIAC and Triacs!

[piconano]

Great crash course on diodes.
I have bought a few IR laser diodes and waiting for some awesome cool project ideas.
Maybe you'll have some cool ideas...

[lobobaltazar]

Thank you sir for your content, beautiful sight to our eyes :)