Amity School of Engineering & Technology

Amity School of Engineering

& Technology
B.Tech- III sem
Basic Electronics Engineering (ES 201)
Transition and Diffusion Capacitance

1
 Amity School of Engineering & Technology

Diode Capacitances

Types of PN junction diode Capacitances:

•Transition Capacitance (CT) under Reversed Bias
•Diffusion Capacitance (CD) under Forward Bias

2
 Amity School of Engineering & Technology

P-N Junction diode as a Capacitor

3
 Amity School of Engineering & Technology

Transition Capacitance
In P-N junction diode, when it is reversed biased, depletion region or space
charge region will act as an insulator/dielectric medium and P region an N
region act as the positive and negative plates of capacitor.

So P-N junction under reversed bias can be considered as a parallel plate
capacitor.

This junction capacitance is called as transition capacitance or drift

capacitance or space charge capacitance and it is denoted by CT

By changing reverse voltage (VR) the depletion width (W) changes, and
associated transition capacitance (CT) will also changes. Therefore a
reverse biased PN junction diode can be treated as a voltage dependent
capacitor.
4
 Amity School of Engineering & Technology

 Transition capacitance CT can be defined as

CT = dQ/dV,
Where dQ is the increase in charge and dV is the
change or increase in voltage.

 The transition capacitance is given as

CT = Aε/W,
where A is the cross sectional area of the region, and W is the
width.

 Using above mentioned concepts it can be concluded that

depletion region increases with the increase in reverse bias
potential the resulting transition capacitance decreases.
 Under reversed biased CT >> CD so CD can be neglected.
5
 Amity School of Engineering & Technology

Diffusion capacitance
•When PN junction is forward biased, it can be considered as capacitor and
associated capacitance as diffusion capacitance C D. Under forward bias
diffusion capacitance is much greater than the transition capacitance.

•When PN junction is forward biased the depletion region or potential barrier

is reduced. The charge carriers moves away from the junction and recombine.

•The concentration of charge carriers is very high near the junction and
reduces when the distance increases.

•In this case charge is stored on both side of the PN junction and it will varies
with the applied forward potential. So as per the basic concept of capacitor,
variation in the charge with respect to applied external voltage results in
capacitance which is called as diffusion capacitance.

6
 Amity School of Engineering & Technology

• Diffusion capacitance can be expressed as

CD = ƮID / ηVT ,
where Ʈ is the mean life time of the charge carrier,
ID is the diode current
VT = KT/Q is the thermal voltage
η is generation recombination factor

• As denoted in the expression, diffusion capacitance is directly

proportional to the diode current I D

• Under forward biased CD >> CT so CT can be neglected.

7
 Amity School of Engineering & Technology

PN junction diode capacitances under

forward and reversed bias

8
Amity School of Engineering & Technology