Avalanche and zener Breakdown mechanisms

Breakdown mechanisms

There are two mechanisms which give rise to the breakdown of a PN junction under reverse bias condition. They are (i) avalanche breakdown and (ii) zener breakdown.

(i) Avalanche breakdown : When both sides of the PN junction are lightly doped and the depletion layer becomes large, avalanche breakdown takes place. In this case, the electric field across the depletion layer is not so strong. The minority carriers accelerated by the field, collide with the semiconductor atoms in the crystal. Because of this collision with valence electrons, covalent bonds are broken and electron hole pairs are generated. These charge carriers, so produced acquire energy from the applied potential and in turn produce more and more carriers. This cumulative process is called avalanche multiplication and the breakdown is called avalanche breakdown.

(ii) Zener breakdown : When both sides of the PN junction are heavily doped, consequently the depletion layer is narrow. Zener breakdown takes place in such a thin narrow junction. When a small reverse bias is applied, a very strong electric field is produced across the thin depletion layer. This field breaks the covalent bonds, extremely large number of electrons and holes are produced, which give rise to the reverse saturation current (Zener current). Zener current is independent of applied voltage.