Saturation current

Article summary

The saturation current (or scale current), more accurately the reverse saturation current, is the part of the reverse current in a semiconductor diode caused by diffusion of minority carriers from the neutral regions to the depletion region. This current is almost independent of the reverse voltage. The reverse bias saturation current I_\text{S} for an ideal p–n diode is: : I_\text{S} = q A n_\text{i}^2 \left( \frac{1}{N_\text{D}} \sqrt{\frac{D_\text{p}}{\tau_\text{p}}} + \frac{1}{N_\text{A}} \sqrt{\frac{D_\text{n}}{\tau_\text{n}}} \right),\, where : q is elementary charge : A is the cross-sectional area : D_\text{p}, D_\text{n} are the diffusion coefficients of holes and electrons, respectively, : N_\text{D}, N_\text{A} are the donor and acceptor concentrations at the n side and p side, respectively, : n_\text{i} is the intrinsic carrier concentration in the semiconductor material, : \tau_\text{p}, \tau_\text{n} are the carrier lifetimes of holes and electrons, respectively. Increase in reverse bias does not allow the majority charge carriers to diffuse across the junction. However, this potential helps some minority charge carriers in crossing the junction.…

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