By:Prayag nao
Light emitting diodes, commonly called LEDs, are real unsung heroes in the electronics world. They do dozens of different jobs and are found in all kinds of devices. Among other things, they form numbers on digital clocks, transmit information from remote controls, light up watches and tell you when your appliances are turned on. Collected together, they can form images on a jumbo television screen or illuminate a traffic light.
Basically, LEDs are just tiny light bulbs that fit easily into an electrical circuit. But unlike ordinary incandescent bulbs, they don't have a filament that will burn out, and they don't get especially hot. They are illuminated solely by the movement of electrons in a semiconductor material, and they last just as long as a standard transistor. The lifespan of an LED surpasses the short life of an incandescent bulb by thousands of hours. Tiny LEDs are already replacing the tubes that light up LCD HDTVs to make dramatically thinner televisions.
Certain elements found in the middle of the periodic table (the orderly grouping of chemical elements) are normally insulators, but we can turn them into conductors with a chemical process called doping. We call these materials semiconductors and silicon and germanium are two of the best known examples. Silicon is normally an insulator, but if you add a few atoms of the element antimony, you effectively sprinkle in some extra electrons and give it the power to conduct electricity. Silicon altered in this way is called n-type (negative-type) because extra electrons (shown here as black blobs) can carry negative electric charge through it.
In the same way, if you add atoms of boron, you effectively take away electrons from the silicon and leave behind "holes" where electrons should be. This type of silicon is called p-type (positive type) because the holes (shown here as white blobs) can move around and carry positive electric charge.
Artwork: N-type silicon has extra electrons (black blobs), while p-type silicon has a lack of electrons that we can think of as "extra holes" (white blobs).
Suppose you connect a battery to this little p-type/n-type junction.
What
will happen? It depends which way the battery is connected. If you
put it so that the battery's negative terminal joins the n-type
silicon, and the battery's positive terminal joins the p-type
silicon, the depletion zone shrinks drastically.
Electrons and holes move across the junction in opposite
directions and a current flows. This is called forward-bias:
However, if you reverse the current, all that happens is that the
depletion zone gets wider. All the holes push up toward one end, all
the electrons push up to the other end, and no current flows at all.
This is called
reverse-bias:
That's how an ordinary diode works and why it allows an electric
current will flow through it only one way. Think of a diode as an
electrical
one-way street. (Transistors,
incidentally, take the junction idea a step further by
putting three different pieces of semiconducting material side by side
instead of two.)
LEDs are simply diodes that are designed to give off light. When a diode is forward-biased so that electrons and holes are zipping back and forth across the junction, they're constantly combining and wiping one another out. Sooner or later, after an electron moves from the n-type into the p-type silicon, it will combine with a hole and disappear. That makes an atom complete and more stable and it gives off a little burst of energy (a kind of "sigh of relief") in the form of a tiny "packet" or photon of light.
This diagram summarizes what happens:
energy. LEDs are specially constructed to release a large number of photons outward. Additionally, they are housed in a plastic bulb that concentrates the light in a particular direction. As you can see in the diagram, most of the light from the diode bounces off the sides of the bulb, traveling on through the rounded end.
LEDs have several advantages over conventional incandescent lamps. For one thing, they don't have a filament that will burn out, so they last much longer. Additionally, their small plastic bulb makes them a lot more durable. They also fit more easily into modern electronic circuits.
Light emitting diodes, commonly called LEDs, are real unsung heroes in the electronics world. They do dozens of different jobs and are found in all kinds of devices. Among other things, they form numbers on digital clocks, transmit information from remote controls, light up watches and tell you when your appliances are turned on. Collected together, they can form images on a jumbo television screen or illuminate a traffic light.
Basically, LEDs are just tiny light bulbs that fit easily into an electrical circuit. But unlike ordinary incandescent bulbs, they don't have a filament that will burn out, and they don't get especially hot. They are illuminated solely by the movement of electrons in a semiconductor material, and they last just as long as a standard transistor. The lifespan of an LED surpasses the short life of an incandescent bulb by thousands of hours. Tiny LEDs are already replacing the tubes that light up LCD HDTVs to make dramatically thinner televisions.
How semiconductors work
Not everything falls so neatly into the two categories of conductor or insulator. Put a big enough voltage across any material and it will become a conductor, whether it's normally an insulator or not. That's how lightning works. When a cloud moves through the air picking up electric charge, it creates a massive voltage between itself and the ground. Eventually, the voltage is so big that the air between the cloud and the ground (which is normally an insulator) suddenly "breaks down" and becomes a conductor—and you get a massive zap of lightning as electricity flows through it.Certain elements found in the middle of the periodic table (the orderly grouping of chemical elements) are normally insulators, but we can turn them into conductors with a chemical process called doping. We call these materials semiconductors and silicon and germanium are two of the best known examples. Silicon is normally an insulator, but if you add a few atoms of the element antimony, you effectively sprinkle in some extra electrons and give it the power to conduct electricity. Silicon altered in this way is called n-type (negative-type) because extra electrons (shown here as black blobs) can carry negative electric charge through it.
In the same way, if you add atoms of boron, you effectively take away electrons from the silicon and leave behind "holes" where electrons should be. This type of silicon is called p-type (positive type) because the holes (shown here as white blobs) can move around and carry positive electric charge.
Artwork: N-type silicon has extra electrons (black blobs), while p-type silicon has a lack of electrons that we can think of as "extra holes" (white blobs).
How a junction diode works
Interesting things happen when you start putting p-type and n-type silicon together. Suppose you join a piece of n-type silicon (with slightly too many electrons) to a piece of p-type silicon (with slightly too few). What will happen? Some of the extra electrons in the n-type will nip across the join (which is called a junction) into the holes in the p-type so, either side of the junction, we'll get normal silicon forming again with neither too many nor too few electrons in it. Since ordinary silicon doesn't conduct electricity, nor does this junction. Effectively it becomes a barrier between the n-type and p-type silicon and we call it a depletion zone because it contains no free electrons or holes:How LEDs work
LEDs are simply diodes that are designed to give off light. When a diode is forward-biased so that electrons and holes are zipping back and forth across the junction, they're constantly combining and wiping one another out. Sooner or later, after an electron moves from the n-type into the p-type silicon, it will combine with a hole and disappear. That makes an atom complete and more stable and it gives off a little burst of energy (a kind of "sigh of relief") in the form of a tiny "packet" or photon of light.
This diagram summarizes what happens:
- N-type silicon (red) has extra electrons (black).
- P-type silicon (blue) has extra holes (white).
- Battery connected across the p-n junction makes the diode forward biased, pushing electrons from the n-type to the p-type and pushing holes in the opposite direction.
- Electrons and holes cross the junction and combine.
- Photons (particles of light) are given off as the electrons and holes recombine.
LED Advantages
While all diodes release light, most don't do it very effectively. In an ordinary diode, the semiconductor material itself ends up absorbing a lot of the lightenergy. LEDs are specially constructed to release a large number of photons outward. Additionally, they are housed in a plastic bulb that concentrates the light in a particular direction. As you can see in the diagram, most of the light from the diode bounces off the sides of the bulb, traveling on through the rounded end.
LEDs have several advantages over conventional incandescent lamps. For one thing, they don't have a filament that will burn out, so they last much longer. Additionally, their small plastic bulb makes them a lot more durable. They also fit more easily into modern electronic circuits.
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