zener excercise

vary the load resistor value to see what happens to Iz and load current. notice that the zener voltage stays the same and so does Vout. every component has Q potential or capacitance, however small. so the small voltage gain on the voltmeter at the load is nothing worth scratching your head over. zeners can regulate load voltage by being placed in parallel with the load. in this application the zener diode will absorb the voltage it is rated to handle. it is reverse biased because the PN junction is designed to be saturated up to the rated value (in this case 10 V) before true diode function becomes active. at which point the zener stops accepting voltage. zener current will vary slightly due to the principles of the changing dynamic of bulk resistance within the diode. bulk resistance is the innate resistance of the elemental composition of the junction considered in combination with the barrier voltage of the junction. it is this barrier voltage that fluctuates slightly in respect to the total current of of the circuit...consider ohms law for a broad understanding of this concept. this is useful when the voltage of a load in a circuit must be maintained within certain value but total current values of the circuit are much higher since the zener only disturbs current vales within a certain range. another good example is switched circuits with SPDT where the load on the switch requires a maintained voltage which is beyond the safe operating value for the rest of the circuit...or Vs. please correct me if im wrong electricity is a volatile thing and not a field with room for error.

published 10 years ago