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I thought Zener breakdown was due to electrons tunnelling through the barrier due to the high reverse bias. Hadn't heard of the breaking of covalent bonds in this context ... on the contrary, we learnt that it was a "safe" type of breakdown in the sense that the material was not harmed.
This page is completely wrong. The Zener effect results from tunneling through the bandgap under high reverse bias. http://ecee.colorado.edu/~bart/book/book/chapter4/ch4_5.htm#4_5_4 There is nothing to do with the breaking of covalent bonds in the traditional sense. Samsmith.eecs (talk) 02:03, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
- The error seems clear, so I fixed it. Eric Drexler (talk) 17:08, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
I came across this mention of disrupting covalent bonds in page 74 Electronics (fundamentals And Applications) By D. Chattopadhyay. This was in the context of how avalanche breakdown occurs. I guess they confused that with zener effect. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aditya8795 (talk • contribs) 03:09, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
Depletion Region Under Reverse-Bias
edit"Under a high reverse-bias voltage, the p-n junction's depletion region shrinks, leading to a high strength electric field across the junction", the article says.
Isn't it the exact opposite? The depletion region expands with increasing reverse-bias voltage. The depletion region of a p-n junction that exhibits the Zener effect is indeed thin, but it is due to the properties of the material (i.e. the high doping) and not applied reverse-bias voltage. There would be in fact a high-strength electric field though. The source this statement is meant to cite even states all this.
Temperature Coefficient
editThis website clearly shows in a table format that Avalanche breakdown is proportional to temperature which makes sense because more thermal energy means faster free electrons, transfering more energy to free more bound electrons. In the case of zener breakdown temperature contributes negatively. I think someone should change the last part of the wiki where this whole thing is claimed in reverse. This wiki page has the required citations for this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aditya8795 (talk • contribs) 02:44, 13 October 2018 (UTC)