PHYS231(Electronics and Instrumentation Lab.

) Final-report

Introduction to Electronics
Taewoong Jang
Department of physics, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Pohang, 790-784, Korea

In this experiment, we measured resistances of some resisters, and V-I curve of a diode, and
proved Thevenin’s theorem with a voltage divider experimentally. As a result, we found that the
resister follows Ohm’s law well, and that a diode does not allow the current to flow in reverse
direction. Moreover, we observed non-linear behaviors of a diode, such as allowing current to flow
only in forward direction.In addition, we found that the diode follows Shockley diode equation well.
Finally, we found that Thevenin’s equivalent circuit works exactly the same as the original circuit.

I. INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES B. Diodes

Since the use of electric devices in physics experiments
have increased, knowledge of electronics is a necessity. In
this experiment, as the first step of utilizing electronics
in physics experiment, we start with experiments such
as measurement of resistance, characteristics of diodes,
experimental proof of Thevenin’s theorem, and a voltage
divider, which can be done relatively easily.
By conducting such experiments, we will acquire
knowledge about the usage of electronic devices such
as oscilloscopes, function generators, digital multimeters,
power supply, etc. Moreover, we may get familiar with
the both of linear and non-linear electric elements such
as resistor, and diodes. Additionally, we will convince
ourselves by verify Thevenin’s theorem experimentally.
II. THEORY AND EVALUATIONS
Diodes are elements which show a non-linear voltage-
current relation. Also it has directional preference. In
one direction, the resistance of a diode is almost zero,
while in the other direction , it does not conduct cur-
rent. We call the direction in which the resistance of
diode becomes zero, ”the forward direction”, while we
call the other ”reverse direction”. There are several types
of diodes. However,the most widely used one is made of
semiconductors. Typical diodes uses P-N junction. P-N
junction is the form where p-type and n-type semicon-
ductors are adjoined. Since the charge carriers of a p-
type semiconductor are holes which have positive charge,
current flows through a diode only when the voltage of
p-type semiconductor is higher than the one of n-type
semiconductor. If not, the holes are attracted to the pole
of the diodes, which results in no flow of charge carriers.

A. Ohm’s law
1. Shockley Diode Equation
Ohm’s law describes the relation between the current
through some electric elements, and the voltage difference
Shockley diode equation is a mathematical modeling
between the two terminals of the resistor. This law can
of V-I relation of diodes. The equation is
be written as
eVD
I = Is (exp( ) − 1), (2)
V = IR, (1) nkT
where, I, V , and R are the current, the voltage, and a
where I, VD , e, n, k, T , and Is are the current, the volt-
constant which varies with electric elements, respectively.
age across the diode, elementary charge, quality factor
Here, we call the constant coefficient ”resistance”. As
which ranges from 1 to 2, Boltsman’s constant, and tem-
one can see from this equation, the voltage applied to a
perature, respectively. At the room temperature(300 K),
resistor is exactly proportional to the current through it, kT
which is the reason why elements, which follows Ohm’s e is approximately 25.85mV, and is called the thermal
voltage[1].
law, is called linear elements. A resistor is an example of
such linear elements.
However, there are elements which do not follow
Ohm’s law, whose current and voltage do not show pro-
2. Idealized Model
portional relation. Such elements show some arbitrary
change in current when we apply higher voltage to those,
and sometimes, have directional preference. An example Fig 1 shows the idealized V-I relation of a diode.
of such electric elements is a diode. Diodes do not follow The resistance becomes zero when we apply voltage in
Ohm’s law, and show non-linear characteristics. For forward direction. However, the resistance diverges to
that reason, diodes are classified into non-linear elements. infinity when we apply voltage in reverse direction.[1]

FIG. 1: Behavior of idealized diodes. The x-axis and y-axis
represents the voltage and the current respectively.
C. Thevenin’s Theorem
Thevenin’s theorem describes how a complex network
of linear electric elements can be modified to the most
simple form of electric networks. Thevenin’s circuit is
composed of one resistor and one power source. The
electromotive force of the power source is the same as
the voltage difference of the two terminals when the ter-
minals are not connected, and called Thevenin’s voltage.
The resistor of the Thevenin’s circuit can be calculated
by dividing the Thevenin’s voltage by the current flowing
between the two terminals when the terminals are con-
nected with a wire with zero resistance. The resistor is
called Thevenin’s resistor.
The theorem is based on the superposition principle.
Since any complex network of resistors can be replaced by
one equivalent resistor, we can replace a circuit where all
power sources in the original circuit are removed, by one
resistor. Moreover, by the linearity of the elements in the
network, the voltage difference between two terminals,
which results from the original circuit, does not change.
By superposition, those two cases are combined to form
the Thevenin’s equivalent circuit.
This theorem can be applied only to networks of linear
elements, since it originates from the linearity. If we
extend the concept of resistance, and allow them to be
complex numbers, we can apply the theorem also in AC
circuit with consistency.
2
D. Electric Elements
There are several classes of electric elements, such as
linear elements, non-linear elements, passive elements,
active elements, etc. First, the linear elements are elec-
tric elements with linear relation between the current
and the voltage. These elements follow Ohm’s law. Of
course, the resistances of the elements can be complex
numbers. The examples are resistances, coils, condenser,
transformers, etc. In contrast, non-linear elements are
those which do not follow Ohm’s law. These elements are
often made of semiconductors. A diode is one of those.
On the other hand, passive elements do not increase the
energy of given signals, while active elements modify
given signals and require additional energy supply. The
examples of passive elements are resistors, inductors,
condensers, etc. Transistor are the example of active
elements.
III. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP AND
PROCEDURES
A. Passive and Linear Element - Resistor
FIG. 2: This circuit is used to measure the current and the
voltage across the resistor.
First, we need to set up a circuit shown in Fig 2.
Since we need to vary the voltage which is applied to
the resistor to be tested, we should put a variable power
supply in the place of the DC voltage in Fig 2. After
finishing setting up the circuit, we vary the voltage of
the power supply. At the same time, we recored the
voltage across the resistor, and the current through it.
We repeat this whole process with various resistors.
B. Passive and Non-linear Element Diodes
When the voltage is applied to the diode in forward
direction, the resistance of the diode becomes almost
zero. For that reason, a big amount of current flows
through the circuit. To prevent the circuit from being

FIG. 3: This circuit is used to measure the current and the
voltage across the diode to be tested.
destroyed we put 1KΩ resistor there. As the previous
experiment, we need to measure the V-I relation of the
diode. Thus, we use a variable power supply, again. To
measure the voltage and the current through the diode,
we place multimeters as shown in Fig 3. After setting
up the circuit, we vary the voltage of the power supply
to measure the V-I curve. After finishing in forward
direction, we repeat the process in reverse direction. By
increasing the voltage, we may observe the breakdown of
the diode, a phenomena that the resistance of the diode
drops to almost zero.
C. Voltage Divider
FIG. 4: This circuit represents the voltage divider used in this
experiment. In this experiment, we use 10V input.
In this experiment, we verify Thevenin’s theorem ex-
perimentally. First, we construct a circuit as in Fig 4. In
this case, we apply 10V to the input. After constructing
the circuit, we need information about Thevenin’s resis-
tance and Thevenin’s voltage. Thus we measure the volt-
age when the output terminals are not connected, and the
current between the output terminal when the two are
connected. Moreover, since we need to verify Thevenin’s
theorem, we also measure the current and the voltage
difference between the output terminals when 1kΩ load
3
is connected to the output.
After that, we construct a circuit according to
Thevenin’s equivalent circuit, and check whether the
current and the voltage difference between the terminals
are the same as the one of the original voltage divider.
Since it is hard to find a resistor which has the same
resistance as the Thevenin’s resistance, we use a variable
resistor.
IV. RESULT AND DISCUSSION
A. Passive and Linear Element - Resistor
FIG. 5: This graph represents V-I relation of several resistors.
X-axis and y-axis represent current through a resistor, and
the voltage across the resister. The lines are fitting curves for
those resisters.
TABLE I: Resistances of the resistors
Resister color coded value Determined resistance
Resistor 1 1140Ω ∼ 1260Ω 1185 ± 0.1Ω
Resistor 2 2375Ω ∼ 2625Ω 2446 ± 0.6Ω
Resistor 3 3705Ω ∼ 4095Ω 3889 ± 2.5Ω
Resistor 4 5890Ω ∼ 6510Ω 6159 ± 1.7Ω
Fig 5 shows the V-I relation of each resister. X-axis and
y-axis of the graph represent current through a resistor,
and the voltage across the resister. The lines in the graph
do not pass through the points; the lines pass by the
points, since the lines are linearly fitted curve.
Table I represents the resistance experimentally de-
termined, and the one coded in color of each resistors.
All color coded values agree with the experiment results.
Moreover, the fact that errors of the resistance exper-
imentally determined are relatively small compared to
the resistance, implies that the V-I relation shows strong
linearity.

B. Passive and Non-linear Element Diodes
FIG. 6: This graph represents V-I relation of a diode. X-axis
and y-axis represent current, and the voltage across the diode.
The diode behaves like Fig 1.
FIG. 7: This graph represents V-I relation of the diode.
X-axis and y-axis represent current, and the voltage across
diode. The line is a fit according to Shockley Diode Equa-
tion.
TABLE II: Curve Fitting Result
Constant Value
Is (1.66 ± 0.03) × 10−5
e
nkT
20.4 ± 0.03
In this experiment, we used IN4007DC diode. As we
expected, the V-I relation of this diode showed similar
V-I relation which is similar to the mathematically ide-
alized model, as in Fig 6. However, if we consider the
V-I relation of the diode only when the current flows in
forward direction, we get a graph different from Fig 6.
4
The graph mentioned above is 7. As we could expected
from Shockley diode equation, the current showed an ex-
ponential growth. To evaluate how well the theoretical
prediction agrees with experimental results, we fitted a
curve of Shockley diode equation to the results from the
experiment. Red line is the fitted curve. The fitting re-
e
sults for Is and nkT are presented in table II. To compare
this result with theoretical expectation, we can simply
e
calculate n , since kT is a value theoretically determined,
and n ranges from 1 to 2. We get n as follows
e 1 1
n= = = 1.9±0.05 (3)
kT 20.4 ± 0.03 Vt × 20.4 ± 0.03
As we expected, the quality factor is turned out to
be less than 2, but larger than 1.Thus, we can conclude
that the diode follows Shockley diode equation well. On
the other hand, we could not measure breakdown voltage,
because of lack of power supplies which is able to generate
voltage as high as the breakdown voltage.
C. Voltage Divider
After we constructed the voltage divider in fig 4, we
measured the voltage between the terminals and the cur-
rent when the two terminals are connected with a wire.
From the result, we could calculate the Thevenin’s re-
sistance and voltage as follows. When we attached the
TABLE III: Thevenin’s resistance and voltage
Constant Value
VT h 5.024V
RT h 5.024V /10.06A = 499.5Ω
1KΩ load resistor to the terminal of the voltage divider,
the current and the voltage across the load resistor was
3.343V and 3.412mA, respectively. To compare this re-
sult with Thevenin’s equivalent circuit, we construct a
circuit with values presented in table III. We used 5.022V
and 489Ω for the equivalent circuit, which are quite simi-
lar to the values in the table. After we attached the load
resistor to the equivalent circuit, we measured the cur-
rent and the voltage across the load resister. The values
were 3.33V and 3.397mA. The differences in the currents
and the voltages of both cases are less than 0.4%, which
implies that the experiment agree with Thevenin’s theo-
rem.
V. CONCLUSION
In this experiment, we measured V-I relation of sev-
eral resistors and a diode. From that, we found that the
resistances of the resistors which is determined by experi-
ment, agree well with the values of color codes. Moreover,
we found that the resistors follows Ohm’s law. From the
 5

diode experiment, we concluded that the diode shows tion. Finally, we found that Thevenin’s theorem agree
non-linear V-I relation, and follows Shockley diode equa- with experimental results.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diode modelling