## How Diodes work?

I do not know much about diodes and I wanted to know if someone could explain me how do semi conductor diodes work and how do we determine in a circuit(dc and ac) the input voltage and the output voltage...
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 See a non-technical explanation at http://computer.howstuffworks.com/diode.htm
 Mentor The wikipedia entry for diodes is pretty good: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diode It's important to have the V-I plot of a diode in your head when you are working on problems that include diodes. You should learn the diode equation $$I = I_s (e^{\frac{qV}{kT}} -1)$$ and learn about the reverse breakdown characteristic (used in Zener diodes, for example).

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## How Diodes work?

Was there a vacuum tube version of a zener diode?

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 Quote by wolram Was there a vacuum tube version of a zener diode?
Interesting question. So I googled +"vacuum tube" +"zener diode" and got some hits. Go to this one for example:

http://members.aol.com/sbench101/

and do a text search on Zener. That will get you down the page to one way to do it with tubes.

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 Quote by berkeman Interesting question. So I googled +"vacuum tube" +"zener diode" and got some hits. Go to this one for example: http://members.aol.com/sbench101/ and do a text search on Zener. That will get you down the page to one way to do it with tubes.
Great site, Thanks berkeman.