ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I wish to express my deep and sincere gratitude to

Rev. Fr. Vincent Albert Principal, St. Joseph’s English
Med. Sr. Sec. School for his encouragement and for all
the facilities that he provided for this project I
gratefully acknowledge my sincere thanks to our
Physics teacher Mr. Mohd. Junaid for his remarkable,
valuable guidance and supervision throughout the
project work.
I also express my thanks to my parents for their
valuable support and all sort of assistance for
completing the project.
Last but not the least; I would like to thank all
those who had helped directly or indirectly towards the
completion of this project.

THANKS AGAIN TO ALL WHO HELPED ME.

SANTOSHI PALIWAL

Department of physics, St. Joseph’s Eng.Med. Sr. Sec. School, Mahoba Page | 1
 INTRODUCTION
The Zener Diode or “Breakdown Diode” as they are sometimes
called, are basically the same as the standard PN junction diode but
are specially designed to have a low pre-determined Reverse
Breakdown Voltage that takes advantage of this high reverse
voltage. The zener diode is the simplest types of voltage regulator and
the point at which a zener diode breaks down or conducts is called the
“Zener Voltage” ( Vz ).
The Zener diode is like a general-purpose signal diode
consisting of a silicon PN junction. When biased in the forward
direction it behaves just like a normal signal diode passing the rated
current, but as soon as a reverse voltage applied across the zener
diode exceeds the rated voltage of the device, the diodes breakdown
voltage is reached at which point a process called Avalanche
Breakdown occurs in the semiconductor depletion layer and a current
starts to flow through the diode to limit this increase in voltage.
The current now flowing through the zener diode increases
dramatically to the maximum circuit value (which is usually limited
by a series resistor) and once achieved this reverse saturation current
remains fairly constant over a wide range of applied voltages. The
voltage point at which the voltage across the zener diode becomes
stable is called the “zener voltage” for zener diodes this voltage can
range from less than one volt to hundreds of volts.
The point at which the zener voltage triggers the current to flow
through the diode can be very accurately controlled (to less than 1%
tolerance) in the doping stage of the diodes semiconductor
construction giving the diode a specific zener breakdown voltage,
( Vz ) for example, 4.3V or 7.5V. This zener breakdown voltage on
the I-V curve is almost a vertical straight line.

Department of physics, St. Joseph’s Eng.Med. Sr. Sec. School, Mahoba Page | 2
 ZENER DIODE I-V
CHARACTERISTICS

The Zener Diode is used in its “reverse bias” or reverse

breakdown mode, i.e. the diodes anode connects to the negative
supply. From the I-V characteristics curve above, we can see that the
zener diode has a region in its reverse bias characteristics of almost a
constant negative voltage regardless of the value of the current
flowing through the diode and remains nearly constant even with
large changes in current as long as the zener diodes current remains
between the breakdown current I  and the maximum current
Z(min)

rating I .
Z(max)

Department of physics, St. Joseph’s Eng.Med. Sr. Sec. School, Mahoba Page | 3
 This ability to control itself can be used to great effect to
regulate or stabilise a voltage source against supply or load variations.
The fact that the voltage across the diode in the breakdown region is
almost constant turns out to be an important application of the zener
diode as a voltage regulator.

The function of a regulator is to provide a constant output

voltage to a load connected in parallel with it in spite of the ripples in
the supply voltage or the variation in the load current and the zener
diode will continue to regulate the voltage until the diodes current
falls below the minimum I  value in the reverse breakdown region.
Z(min)

Department of physics, St. Joseph’s Eng.Med. Sr. Sec. School, Mahoba Page | 4
 THE ZENER DIODE REGULATOR
Zener Diodes can be used to produce a stabilised voltage output
with low ripple under varying load current conditions. By passing a
small current through the diode from a voltage source, via a suitable
current limiting resistor (R ), the zener diode will conduct sufficient
S

current to maintain a voltage drop of Vout.

We remember from the previous tutorials that the DC output

voltage from the half or full-wave rectifiers contains ripple
superimposed onto the DC voltage and that as the load value changes
so to does the average output voltage. By connecting a simple zener
stabiliser circuit as shown below across the output of the rectifier, a
more stable output voltage can be produced.

Zener Diode Regulator

The resistor, R  is connected in series with the zener diode to

S

limit the current flow through the diode with the voltage
source, V  being connected across the combination. The stabilised
S

Department of physics, St. Joseph’s Eng.Med. Sr. Sec. School, Mahoba Page | 5
output voltage V  is taken from across the zener diode. The zener
out

diode is connected with its cathode terminal connected to the positive

rail of the DC supply so it is reverse biased and will be operating in its
breakdown condition. Resistor R  is selected so to limit the maximum
S

current flowing in the circuit.

With no load connected to the circuit, the load current will be

zero, ( I  = 0 ), and all the circuit current passes through the zener
L

diode which in turn dissipates its maximum power. Also a small value
of the series resistor R  will result in a greater diode current when the
S

load resistance R  is connected and large as this will increase the
L

power dissipation requirement of the diode so care must be taken

when selecting the appropriate value of series resistance so that the
zener’s maximum power rating is not exceeded under this no-load or
high-impedance condition.

The load is connected in parallel with the zener diode, so the

voltage across R  is always the same as the zener voltage, ( V  = V  ).
L R Z

There is a minimum zener current for which the stabilization of the

voltage is effective and the zener current must stay above this value
operating under load within its breakdown region at all times. The
upper limit of current is of course dependant upon the power rating of
the device. The supply voltage V  must be greater than V .
S Z

One small problem with zener diode stabiliser circuits is that the
diode can sometimes generate electrical noise on top of the DC supply
as it tries to stabilise the voltage. Normally this is not a problem for

Department of physics, St. Joseph’s Eng.Med. Sr. Sec. School, Mahoba Page | 6
most applications but the addition of a large value decoupling
capacitor across the zener’s output may be required to give additional
smoothing.

Then to summarise a little. A zener diode is always operated in

its reverse biased condition. A voltage regulator circuit can be
designed using a zener diode to maintain a constant DC output
voltage across the load in spite of variations in the input voltage or
changes in the load current. The zener voltage regulator consists of a
current limiting resistor R  connected in series with the input
S

voltage V  with the zener diode connected in parallel with the

S

load R  in this reverse biased condition. The stabilized output voltage
L

is always selected to be the same as the breakdown voltage V  of the Z

diode.

Zener Diode Voltages

As well as producing a single stabilised voltage output, zener diodes

can also be connected together in series along with normal silicon
signal diodes to produce a variety of different reference voltage output
values as shown below.

Department of physics, St. Joseph’s Eng.Med. Sr. Sec. School, Mahoba Page | 7
 ZENER DIODES CONNECTED IN
SERIES

The values of the individual Zener diodes can be chosen to suit

the application while the silicon diode will always drop about 0.6 –
0.7V in the forward bias condition. The supply voltage, Vin must of
course be higher than the largest output reference voltage and in our
example above this is 19v.

A typical zener diode for general electronic circuits is the

500mW, BZX55 series or the larger 1.3W, BZX85 series were the
zener voltage is given as, for example, C7V5 for a 7.5V diode giving
a diode reference number of BZX55C7V5.

The 500mW series of zener diodes are available from about 2.4 up to
about 100 volts and typically have the same sequence of values as
used for the 5% (E24) resistor series with the individual voltage
ratings for these small but very useful diodes are given in the table
below.

Department of physics, St. Joseph’s Eng.Med. Sr. Sec. School, Mahoba Page | 8
ZENER DIODE CLIPPING CIRCUITS
Thus far we have looked at how a zener diode can be used to
regulate a constant DC source but what if the input signal was not
steady state DC but an alternating AC waveform how would the zener
diode react to a constantly changing signal.

Diode clipping and clamping circuits are circuits that are used to
shape or modify an input AC waveform (or any sinusoid) producing a
differently shape output waveform depending on the circuit
arrangement. Diode clipper circuits are also called limiters because
they limit or clip-off the positive (or negative) part of an input AC
signal. As zener clipper circuits limit or cut-off part of the waveform
across them, they are mainly used for circuit protection or in
waveform shaping circuits.

For example, if we wanted to clip an output waveform at +7.5V,

we would use a 7.5V zener diode. If the output waveform tries to
exceed the 7.5V limit, the zener diode will “clip-off” the excess
voltage from the input producing a waveform with a flat top still
keeping the output constant at +7.5V. Note that in the forward bias
condition a zener diode is still a diode and when the AC waveform
output goes negative below -0.7V, the zener diode turns “ON” like
any normal silicon diode would and clips the output at -0.7V as
shown below.

Department of physics, St. Joseph’s Eng.Med. Sr. Sec. School, Mahoba Page | 9
 SQUARE WAVE SIGNAL

The back to back connected zener diodes can be used as an AC

regulator producing what is jokingly called a “poor man’s square
wave generator”. Using this arrangement we can clip the waveform
between a positive value of +8.2V and a negative value of -8.2V for a
7.5V zener diode.

So for example, if we wanted to clip an output waveform

between two different minimum and maximum values of say, +8V
and -6V, we would simply use two differently rated zener diodes.
Note that the output will actually clip the AC waveform between
+8.7V and -6.7V due to the addition of the forward biasing diode
voltage.

Department of physics, St. Joseph’s Eng.Med. Sr. Sec. School, Mahoba Page | 10
 In other words a peak-to-peak voltage of 15.4 volts instead of
expected 14 volts, as the forward bias volt drop across the diode adds
another 0.7 volts in each direction.

This type of clipper configuration is fairly common for

protecting an electronic circuit from over voltage. The two zener’s are
generally placed across the power supply input terminals and during
normal operation, one of the zener diodes is “OFF” and the diodes
have little or no affect. However, if the input voltage waveform
exceeds its limit, then the zener’s turn “ON” and clip the input to
protect the circuit.

In the next tutorial about diodes, we will look at using the

forward biased PN junction of a diode to produce light. We know
from the previous tutorials that when charge carriers move across the
junction, electrons combine with holes and energy is lost in the form
of heat, but also some of this energy is dissipated as photons but we
can not see them.

If we place a translucent lens around the junction, visible light

will be produced and the diode becomes a light source. This effect
produces another type of diode known commonly as the Light
Emitting Diode which takes advantage of this light producing
characteristic to emit light (photons) in a variety of colours and
wavelengths.

Department of physics, St. Joseph’s Eng.Med. Sr. Sec. School, Mahoba Page | 11
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

 Holy faith ABC of physics, class 12th

 NCERT physics , class 12th

 WIKIPEDIA, the free encyclopedia

 GOOGLE

Department of physics, St. Joseph’s Eng.Med. Sr. Sec. School, Mahoba Page | 12
 CERTIFICATE
It has been certified that
SANTOSHI PALIWAL Studying in XII,
during the academic year 2018-19
has completed a project under the
guidance of Mr. Mohd. Junaid (H.O.D. Physics)
on the “ZENER DIODE AS A VOLTAGE REGULATOR”
and has given satisfactory account
on her project report.

INTERNAL EXAMINER PRINCIPAL

[MR. MOHD. JUNAID] [Rev. Fr. Vincent

Albert]

EXTERNAL EXAMINER

DATE –
Department of physics, St. Joseph’s Eng.Med. Sr. Sec. School, Mahoba Page | 13
 INDEX
Sn. Particulars Page No.

(1) Acknowledgement 01

(2) Introduction 02

(3) I-V Characteristic 03-04

(4) The Zener Diode Regulator 05-07

(5) Zener Diodes Connected in Series 08

(6) Zener Diode Clipping Circuits 09

(7) Square Wave Signal 10-11

(8) Bibliography 12

Department of physics, St. Joseph’s Eng.Med. Sr. Sec. School, Mahoba Page | 14
 PHYSICS INVESTIGATORY
PROJECT REPORT ON
“ZENER DIODE AS A VOLTAGE REGULATOR”

Prepared in Partially Fulfillment of

AISSCE 2018-2019 conducted by
C.B.S.E. New Delhi

Mr. MOHD. JUNAID

Submitted By-
SANTOSHI PALIWAL
Class - 12th
Department of physics, St. Joseph’s Eng.Med. Sr. Sec. School, Mahoba Page | 15
 Roll No. -

Department of physics, St. Joseph’s Eng.Med. Sr. Sec. School, Mahoba Page | 16