Tunnel Diodes - Has Errors, See Errata in the Description

Errata:

I misread the oscilloscope trace I used to show the voltages and currents of the charastic curve of a tunnel diode--I misread by a factor of 10, seeing 8 mA as 80 mA. This throws off my current and impedance numbers by the same factor. This doesn't affect the explanation and would be correct for a tunnel diode that operates at the currents I mentioned. However, it turns out that the curve I misread is typical, making my numbers unrealistic. While relating this video to a real tunnel diode, decrease the currents by a factor of 10 and increase the impedances/resistances by the same factor.

The quantum tunneling effect causes a tunnel diode to act much like a fixed resistor of about five or six ohms when reverse-biased or below about 50 millivolts when forward-biased. Between about 50 millivolts and 300 millivolts (0.05 and 0.3 volts), assuming a germanium diode, the impedance of the tunnel diode increases exponentially as the voltage increases. This causes the current to decrease linearly as the voltage increases; the reverse of a fixed resistor. This is called the negative resistance region. Above 300 millivolts, the germanium tunnel diode acts like a regular germanium diode.

The negative resistance region, along with the tunnel diode's low capacitance, can be exploited to create microwave-frequency oscillators. The tunnel diode acts like a voltage-sensitive variable resistor that provides a current inverse to the voltage of a ringing tank circuit. This current is, thus, fed into the tank circuit at the correct phase to compensate for the damping as energy is dissipated by the circuit's resistance.

[CaptainJack]

"Quantum physics is kind of weird" What a delightful understatement, I enjoyed that very much. 😊

[Kevkimkayla]

Can you use a mosfet to creat a class A amplifier, also is there a way to amplify the current of a signal from a class A amplifier

[mikejones-vdfg]

Ahhh its occured to me this probablity of being is sort of like consiouness, we too can be what we want but fall into a probability range with extremes on the end. Not everyones the same. Since we have it maybe the universe too has it fundamentally bult in - ability to choose your own way aka free will and it shows up how electrons behave, probabilistically.