Page 52 - Photonics Essentials an introduction with experiments
P. 52
Photodiodes
46 Photonic Devices
1, it means that carriers are getting lost due to recombination at traps,
or that there are substantial ohmic losses in the contacts. This is bad
news, of course, but more so for light-emitting diodes and lasers, where
large current densities are present, than for photodiodes.
In Fig. 3.5, we show the current voltage characteristic of a p-n light-
emitting diode. The I–V characteristic obeys the same laws as that for
Figure 3.5. Current voltage characteristic of a light-emitting diode. The inset shows
both forward and reverse bias behavior. The graph is a semilog plot of forward current
versus voltage. The slope gives the ideality factor n. In this case, n = 1.38.
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