gEDA-user: LED in reverse

[Greg Cunningham]

I did a electronics apprentiship ~30-odd years ago & understood 50% 
(enough for a pass mark).  Then I had to teach it ~10 years ago...

What I discovered was that doping followed the laws of molecular 
bonding.  No surprises there.

The activity that produces the depletion layer commences with ionic 
bonding (a dangling electron finds a greater attraction in a neighbour 
atom's 'hole' orbit than its own orbit. This produces 2x ions). The 
delpetion layer grows in width by this activity until the molecular 
bonding forces That hole the donor atom orbits in place equal the ionic 
bonding forces.  Am I close?  Did I lead those kids astray?
-- 
Greg

Dave McGuire wrote:
> On Nov 21, 2006, at 6:01 AM, Karel Kulhavy wrote:
> 
>> I read a lot of explanations how this works. I am able to learn any  
>> explanation
>> like a poem, where each verse is a logical deduction I can  
>> understand. But I
>> wasn't able to understand the diode at once.
> 
> 
>   I learn in much the same way.  Breaking complex behaviors down  into 
> easily-understandable, intuitive component behaviors makes  things much 
> easier for me to grasp.
> 
>               -Dave
>