If the base voltage falls below approximately 0.6 V for a silicon transistor, the large emitter-collector current ceases to flow. Moreover, modulating the small base current produces a larger change in collector current. Most of the emitter current of electrons diffuses through the thin base into the collector. Few electrons injected by the emitter into the base of an NPN transistor fall into holes.Īlso, few electrons entering the base flow directly through the base to the positive battery terminal. A few majority carriers in the emitter, injected as minority carriers into the base, actually recombine. In our NPN transistor example, electrons leaving the emitter for the base would combine with holes in the base, making room for more holes to be created at the ( ) battery terminal on the base as electrons exit. If the base region were thick, as in a pair of back-to-back diodes, all the current entering the base would flow out the base lead. This voltage source needs to exceed 0.6 V for majority carriers (electrons for NPN) to flow from the emitter into the base becoming minority carriers in the P-type semiconductor. This is similar to forward biasing a junction diode. Normally we forward bias the emitter-base junction, overcoming the 0.6 V potential barrier. In Figure below(a), a voltage source has been added to the emitter base circuit. There is no current flow, except leakage current, in the collector circuit. The reverse bias voltage could be a few volts to tens of volts for most transistors. Note that this increases the width of the depletion region. It is customary to reverse bias the base-collector junction of a bipolar junction transistor as shown in (Figure above(b). (b) Apply reverse bias to collector base junction. The device in Figure below(a) has a pair of junctions, emitter to base and base to collector, and two depletion regions. We cannot over emphasize the importance of the thin base region. The key to the fabrication of a bipolar junction transistor is to make the middle layer, the base, as thin as possible without shorting the outside layers, the emitter and collector. In fact, it is far easier to build a pair of back-to-back diodes. If this were the only requirement, we would have no more than a pair of back-to-back diodes. It is as if a third layer were added to a two layer diode. The bipolar junction transistor shown in Figure below (a) is an NPN three layer semiconductor sandwich with an emitter and collector at the ends, and a base in between. They were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1956 for the transistor. Within a month, Shockley had a more practical junction transistor, which we describe in following paragraphs. Brattain fabricated a germanium point contact transistor, bearing some resemblance to a point contact diode. Thus, many texts differ as to the date of invention. The first bipolar transistor was invented at Bell Labs by William Shockley, Walter Brattain, and John Bardeen so late in 1947 that it was not published until 1948. The bipolar junction transistor (BJT) was named because its operation involves conduction by two carriers: electrons and holes in the same crystal.
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