Low temperature current - voltage characteristics of silicon diodes used as thermometers

✍ Scribed by A Szmyrka-Grzebyk; L Lipiński

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1993
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 367 KB
• Volume: 33
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0011-2275
• DOI: 10.1016/0011-2275(93)90141-a

✦ Synopsis

With the aim of the determination of an optimum value of the forward current for diode thermometers, the V versus I characteristics of two types of industrial diodes (1 N4001-6 and BYP 401) and the diode thermometers DT 500 and DT 470 have been measured in the temperature range 4-300 K. All types of the diodes tested exhibited a logarithmic dependence of V on I in the temperature range above 20 K. Below this temperature large deviations from the classical theory of the p-n junction have been observed. In some diodes there was an instability of the voltage over a narrow temperature range, in other types their was a hysteresis of the V versus I characteristics, a negative resistance or an effect of 'switching' from a high resistivity state to a state of relatively low resistivity.

The observed effects can have an influence on the accuracy of temperature measurement in the low temperature range.